Meaning of Cowl | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A vessel carried on a pole, a soe.
   British, obsolete
2. A caul (the amnion which encloses the foetus before birth, especially that part of it which sometimes shrouds a baby’s head at birth).
3. A monk's hood that can be pulled forward to cover the face; a robe with such a hood attached to it.
4. A mask that covers the majority of the head.
5. A thin protective covering over all or part of an engine; also cowling.
6. A usually hood-shaped covering used to increase the draft of a chimney and prevent backflow.
7. A ship's ventilator with a bell-shaped top which can be swivelled to catch the wind and force it below.
8. A vertical projection of a ship's funnel that directs the smoke away from the bridge.
9. A monk.
   metonymically

Equivalents

Examples

“c. 1536, William Tyndale, An Exposycyon vpon the v. vi. vii. Chapters of Mathewe, An Exposycyon of the syxte Capiter, And therfore al our monkes whose professyon was neuer to eate fleshe, set vp the Pope and toke dispensacyons bothe for that faste and also for theyr strayte rules, and made theyr strayte rules as wyde as the hodes of theyr cowles.”

“"What differ more (you cry) than Crown and Cowl?" / I'll tell you, friend: a Wiſe man and a Fool.”

“The hermit, as if wishing to answer to the confidence of his guest, threw back his cowl, and showed a round bullet head belonging to a man in the prime of life.”

“The roof came down steep and black like a cowl, reaching out beyond the wide galleries that encircled the yellow stuccoed house.”

“She brought the corner of the quilt over his head like a cowl and pulled it down over his face.”

“[…] fire was spurting up from the torn engine cowl and glowing in the cockpit.”

“In the extreme clearness of the atmosphere the line of every roof, the cowl of every chimney was perceptible […]”

“I’m sure I’m very sorry, but it’s always this way when the wind’s in the east, sir, and we’ve tried ever so many sorts of cowls and chimney-pots, you’d be surprised.”

“Sail-like, the oast-house towers of Horsmonden seem almost to plough the rich soil of their Kentish hopfield like graceful yachts on a gently rolling sea. And sail-like, their wind vanes turn the angled cowls with the breeze to create a vacuum inside that draws up hot air to dry the hops on their slatted floor below. This is the Garden of England, and the village is surrounded by orchards and pastures, as well as hopfields - […].”

“He flung himself at the port ventilator as though he meant to tear it out bodily and toss it overboard. All he did was to move the cowl round a few inches, with an enormous expenditure of force, and seemed spent in the effort.”

“According to one of his accounts—and his accounts varied with his audience—he was the seventh son of a seventh son, and born with a cowl on his face […]”

“1982, André Brink, A Chain of Voices, New York: William Morrow, Part 3, “Campher,” p. 331, […] I’d been born with a cowl, which from my earliest age prompted a wide variety of predictions about my future, alternately dire and enthusiastic.”

CEFR level