FromMiddle English*bilowe,*bilewe,*bilwe,*bilȝe, borrowed fromOld Norsebylgja,[1] fromProto-Germanic*bulgijō. Cognates includeDanishbølge(“wave”),Norwegian Bokmålbølge(“wave”),Norwegian Nynorskbylgje(“wave”),German Low GermanBulge,Bulg,Bülg(“billow, wave”),GermanBulge(“billow, wave”).
billow (pluralbillows)
- Alargewave,swell,surge, orundulatingmass of something, such aswater,smoke,fabric orsound
1782, William Cowper, “Expostulation”, inPoems by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq.:[…] Whom the winds waft where'er thebillows roll, / From the world's girdle to the frozen pole;
1842, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Wreck of the Hesperus”, inBallads and Other Poems:The snow fell hissing in the brine, / And thebillows frothed like yeast.
1851,Herman Melville,Moby Dick, Chapter 9:But at that moment he is sprung upon by a pantherbillow leaping over the bulwarks. Wave after wave thus leaps into the ship[…]
1864, Frank Moore,Songs of the Soldiers, page238:The banners outflame the blazing morn, / O'erbillows of bayonet, sword, and spear.
- 1893 August, Rudyard Kipling, "Seal Lullaby", in "The White Seal",National Review.
Wherebillow meetsbillow, there soft be thy pillow; / Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
1922,Clark Ashton Smith,The Caravan:Have the swirling sands engulfed them, on a noon of storm when the desert rose like the sea, and rolled its tawnybillows on the walled gardens of the green and fragrant lands?
billow (third-person singular simple presentbillows,present participlebillowing,simple past and past participlebillowed)
- To surge orroll in billows.
1920,Peter B. Kyne, chapter 2, inThe Understanding Heart:During the preceding afternoon a heavy North Pacific fog had blown in … Scudding eastward from the ocean, it had crept up and over the redwood-studded crests of the Coast Range mountains,[…],billowing steadily eastward, it had rolled up the western slopes of the Siskiyou Range,[…]
1942,Emily Carr, “Chain Gang”, inThe Book of Small, Toronto, Ont.:Oxford University Press,→OCLC:The nuns' veilsbillowed and flapped behind the snaky line of girls as if the sisters were shooing the serpent from the Garden of Eden.
2015, Alison Matthews David,Fashion Victims: The Damages of Dress Past and Present,→ISBN, page59:The black clouds of mercury vapour constantlybillowing from the hatter's workshops and out into the streets must have been a horrifying sight.
2015 June 12, James Pearson, “Popular Pyongyang tourist spot the Koryo Hotel catches fire”, in Andrew Hay, Paul Tait, editors,Reuters[1], sourced from SEOUL (Reuters), archived fromthe original onJuly 29, 2024, World:A section of the Koryo Hotel, one of the oldest and best known hotels in Pyongyang, caught fire on Thursday, sources who witnessed the fire in the North Korean capital told Reuters.
Images obtained by Reuters showed plumes of black smokebillowing from the bridge connecting the two 43-storey towers of the 143-metre (469-feet) structure, which lies a short distance from Pyongyang's bustling train station and the Taedong river that cuts through the city.
- Toswell out orbulge.
1936 June 30,Margaret Mitchell, chapter I, inGone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.:The Macmillan Company,→OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company,1944,→OCLC:Her new green flowered-muslin dress spread its twelve yards ofbillowing material over her hoops and exactly matched the flat-heeled green morocco slippers her father had recently brought her from Atlanta.
1983,Peter De Vries, chapter 9, inSlouching Towards Kalamazoo, page125:She had changed her auburn hair. Instead of wearing it in abillowing puff over her brow, she had gathered it into a ponytail, secured with a length of yellow yarn.
