different between billow vs billowy

English

Etymology

From Middle English *bilowe, *bilewe, *bilwe, *bil?e, borrowed from Old Norse bylgja, from Proto-Germanic *bulgij?. Cognates include Danish bølge, Norwegian Bokmål bølge, Norwegian Nynorsk bylgje, Middle High German bulga and Low German bulge.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?b?l??/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?b?lo?/

• Rhymes: -?l??

Noun

billow (plural billows)

1. A large wave, swell, surge, or undulating mass of something, such as water, smoke, fabric or sound
   • 1782, William Cowper, "Expostulation", in Poems by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq..

     […] Whom the winds waft where'er the billows roll, / From the world's girdle to the frozen pole;

   • 1842, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "The Wreck of the Hesperus", in Ballads and Other Poems.

   • 1873, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "The Brook and the Wave" in Birds of Passage:

     And the brooklet has found the billow / Though they flowed so far apart.

   • 1893 August, Rudyard Kipling, "Seal Lullaby", in "The White Seal", National Review.

Translations

Verb

billow (third-person singular simple present billows, present participle billowing, simple past and past participle billowed)

1. To surge or roll in billows.
   • 1942, Emily Carr, The Book of Small, “Chain Gang,”^[1]

     The nuns' veils billowed and flapped behind the snaky line of girls as if the sisters were shooing the serpent from the Garden of Eden.
2. To swell out or bulge.

Translations

References

English

Etymology

billow +? -y

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?b?.l??.(w)i/
• Rhymes: -?l??(w)i

Adjective

billowy (comparative billowier, superlative billowiest)

1. swelling or swollen into large waves; full of billows or surges; resembling billows.
   • 1919, W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, chapter 58

     [...] Tiare clasped me to her vast bosom, so that I seemed to sink into a billowy sea, and pressed her red lips to mine.

Translations

References

• billowy in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.