bowling

Etymology

It is formed from English bowl² + -ing,^[2][3][4][5] a verbal noun from the verb for rolling a ball.^[6] The verb, recorded from 1440, is itself formed from the noun for the ball;^[2] compare Middle French bouler (“to roll, to play bowls”).^[2] That noun is from Middle French boule (“a ball, a ball used in games”), from Latin bulla (“bubble, boss, knob”).^[2][6][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The game of bowls, played by rolling heavy balls towards a small target ball: about 1450, in a manuscript of John Mirk's Instructions, in the revised OED.^[2] Other dictionaries give a later first date: 1535 in Merriam-Webster Unabridged,^[4] the 1530s in Etymonline,^[6] and the early 16th century in the Shorter Oxford.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word first named the outdoor game of bowls and the action of rolling the ball in it.^[2][3] The sheltered and the outdoor settings soon had their own compounds: Etymonline dates bowling alley, a covered place with a smooth plank passage, to the 1550s, and bowling green to the 1640s.^[6] Cricket took the word over in the 18th century for the delivering of the ball to the batter (1752 in the OED),^[2][3] just before Etymonline's date of 1755 for the verb in this use.^[6] From 1827 it could also mean the bowlers of a team taken together.^[2][3] A figurative use, for an attack or challenge likened to a delivery in cricket, follows in 1942.^[2] In Merriam-Webster Unabridged the main sense is a game with pins at the end of an alley, as in tenpins.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1450 – the game of bowls, played on a smooth level surface.^[2]
• 1752 – in cricket, the action or skill of delivering the ball.^[2]
• 1827 – in cricket, a team's bowlers collectively.^[2]
• 1942 – figurative, of a challenge or attack likened to a delivery in cricket.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any of several games in which balls are rolled at an object or a group of objects, especially the game in which they are rolled down an alley at pins set up at the far end: They went bowling on Friday night.^[4][7]
2. The game of bowls, played on a smooth lawn by rolling balls towards a small target ball, the jack.^[2][7]
3. In cricket, the action, practice or skill of delivering the ball towards the batter: His fast bowling won the match.^[2][7][3]
4. In cricket, the bowlers of a team collectively, or their strength.^[2][7][3]

Word family

• bowling alley
• bowling ball
• bowling green
• bowling bag
• bowling crease
• lawn bowling

Related words

• bowl
• bowler
• bowline
• bulla
• bola

Usage notes

Johnson (1755) entered bowling as a sailors' variant of bowline, the rope that keeps a sail close to the wind.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.