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rowel

noun

No English definition recorded for this entry.

L326958 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /ˈɹoʊəl/

noun

Etymology: From Middle English rowel, rowell, rowelle, from Old French roel, roiele (compare modern French rouelle), from Late Latin rotella, diminutive of Latin rota (“wheel”). Doublet of rotella.

  1. A small spiked wheel on the end of a spur of certain types.

    I / Perceive 'tis an advantage for a man to vvear ſpurres, / The rovvell of Knight-hood does gingle in the eare of their / Vnderſtanding.

    The deep and sharp rowels with which Ivanhoe’s heels were now armed, began to make the worthy Prior repent of his courtesy,[…].

  2. A little flat ring or wheel on a horse's bit.

    The iron rowels into frothy foam he bit.

  3. A roll of hair, silk, etc., passed through the flesh of a horse in the manner of a seton in human surgery.

verb

Etymology: From Middle English rowel, rowell, rowelle, from Old French roel, roiele (compare modern French rouelle), from Late Latin rotella, diminutive of Latin rota (“wheel”). Doublet of rotella.

  1. To use a rowel on (something), especially to drain fluid.
  2. To fit with spurs.
  3. To apply the spur to.

    to rowel a horse

    When the first dogs barked Glanton roweled his horse forward and they came out of the trees and across the dry scrub with the long necks of the horses leaning out of the dust avid as hounds […].

  4. To incite; to goad.

    He would have been completely ignorant of what was going on if Frank, periodically roweled by the viciously anti-labor stand of the Pittsburgh newspapers, hadn't felt the need of an audience.