bowel

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English bouel, also buel and bowel,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman buel and Old French boel, also bouel and the feminine boele,^[3][4][5] now boyau.^[6][5] The French word is from Latin botellus (“small sausage, pudding”), recorded in Martial, which in later popular and Medieval Latin meant a small intestine;^[3][4][7] it is a diminutive of botulus (“sausage”),^[8][5][9] a word borrowed from an Oscan-Umbrian language.^[5][7] Merriam-Webster takes the Latin word as probably akin to Old English cwiþ (“belly, womb”), Old High German quiti (“vulva”), Old Norse kviðr (“belly, womb”) and Gothic 𐌵𐌹𐌸𐌿𐍃 (qiþus, “stomach, womb”),^[10][11] and Barnhart and Klein trace them to Proto-Indo-European *gwet-.^[7][12] The same Latin source gave Italian budello,^[3][13] and botulus is also the source of botulism.^[9][14] In Anglo-Norman boele is recorded from 1121–35, for the intestines and entrails.^[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

The intestines or entrails, in the plural: about 1300, in Kyng Alisaunder.^[3][7][5] The singular, one of the intestines, is first quoted from Gower in 1393.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories explains that the Latin word for a little sausage came to mean "intestine" in Medieval Latin, presumably from the likeness between the two, and that French took it in that sense in the 12th century.^[14] In Middle English the word was also used of animal guts and of gut as the material of harp strings.^[2][3] From the 1380s the bowels were the seat of pity and tender feeling:^[3][5] the Wycliffite Bible of 1382 speaks of the bowelis of Jesus Christ.^[3][13] Etymonline explains that Greek splankhnon, the inner organs as the seat of feeling, was used in the Septuagint to translate a Hebrew word, and early English Bibles rendered it literally as bowels, where later versions often have heart.^[5] Phrases like bowels of compassion followed from 1526.^[3] From 1548 the word was used of the interior of anything, as in the bowels of the earth,^[3][16] and for a time (before 1593 to 1682) also of one's offspring, like Latin viscera.^[3] Bowel movement is attested by 1874.^[5] The verb bowel, to disembowel, is recorded from 1330.^[3][10]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – the bowels, the intestines or entrails.^[3][7]
• 1330 – verb, to disembowel.^[3]
• 1382 – the bowels as the seat of pity or compassion.^[3]
• 1393 – singular, an intestine.^[3]
• 1548 – the interior of anything.^[3]
• 1874 – bowel movement.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The intestine, or one of its parts, especially the large intestine; usually plural except in medical use: a disorder of the bowel.^[10][16][3]
2. (plural) The entrails or inner organs.^[16][10]
3. (plural) The deepest or innermost part of something: the bowels of the ship.^[16][10][3]
4. (archaic) (plural) The seat of pity or tender feeling; compassion.^[16][10][3]
5. (obsolete, 1440–1752) Any internal organ of the body.^[3][10]

Verb

1. To disembowel.^[10][3]

Word family

• bowelless
• disembowel
• embowel
• bowel movement
• inflammatory bowel disease
• irritable bowel syndrome

Related words

• botulism
• boyau
• pudding

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
12. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
16. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins