Meanings
plural bawleys
- nauticalA small fishing boat, equipped with sails, used mainly in the estuary of the Thames, England.
What a sight it must have been a century ago when Harwich Quay was lined with bawleys—east coast sailing craft designed for catching shrimps and whitebait.
2010 June 5, Brian Jackman, “Walton Backwaters: Going with the flow in Essex”, in Telegraph, UK, retrieved 20 Sep 20151 more example
It is ten o'clock in the day; the bawleys have returned from the fishing grounds, and scores of them have anchored in the Ray—a deep stretch of water lying between the spit of sand that extends from the end of Canvey Island close up to Southend Pier, and the mud-flats of Leigh.
1891, G. A. Henty, chapter 1, in A Chapter of Adventures
Cite this entry
bawley. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bawley
“bawley.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bawley. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bawley,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bawley.
Source: bawley on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.