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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

bawl.

To shout or utter in a loud and intense manner.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/bɔːl/Received-Pronunciation/boːl/British, Southern, Standard/bɔl/Scotland/baːl/Northumbria

  1. To shout or utter in a loud and intense manner.

    transitive
    commanders bawling

  2. To wail; to give out a blaring cry.

    intransitive
    children bawling
    cattle bawling

  3. To weep profusely.

    intransitive
    children bawling
    mourners bawling
Where this word comes from

From Middle English baulen, from Old Norse baula (“to bellow”) and/or Medieval Latin baulō (“to bark”), both from Proto-Germanic *bau- (“to roar”), conflated with Proto-Germanic *bellaną, *ballijaną, *buljaną (“to shout, low, roar”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to sound, roar”). Cognate with Faroese belja (“to low”), Icelandic baula (“to moo, low”), Swedish böla (“to bellow, low”). More at bell.

noun/bɔːl/Received-Pronunciation/boːl/British, Southern, Standard/bɔl/Scotland/baːl/Northumbria

  1. A loud, intense shouting or wailing.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English baulen, from Old Norse baula (“to bellow”) and/or Medieval Latin baulō (“to bark”), both from Proto-Germanic *bau- (“to roar”), conflated with Proto-Germanic *bellaną, *ballijaną, *buljaną (“to shout, low, roar”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to sound, roar”). Cognate with Faroese belja (“to low”), Icelandic baula (“to moo, low”), Swedish böla (“to bellow, low”). More at bell.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.