Meanings
comparative billowier · superlative billowiest
- Swelling or swollen into large waves; full of billows or surges; resembling billows.
[…] Tiare clasped me to her vast bosom, so that I seemed to sink into a billowy sea, and pressed her red lips to mine.
1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter LVIII, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC2 more examples
He was shabby and careless, with inkstains on the sleeves of his jacket, and his cravat was large and billowy, under a chin shaped like the toe of an old boot.
1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 200This allows the muscular man to order a suit whose jacket fits him in the chest and shoulders and is not billowy through the waist and hips; and whose trousers fit him in the waist but whose legs are not reminiscent of harem pants.
2006, Nicholas Antongiavanni [pseudonym; Michael Anton], The Suit: A Machiavellian Approach to Men's Style, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 28
Synonyms & antonyms
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Proto-Indo-European*bʰelǵʰ-
- Proto-Germanic*belganą
- Proto-Germanic*bulgijō
- Old Norsebylgja
- Middle English*bilwe
- Englishbillow
- Englishbillowy
Translations
Bulgarian хълмист
- хълмист (hălmist)full of billows or surges
Czech vlnící se, vzdouvající se
- vlnící sefull of billows or surges
- vzdouvající sefull of billows or surges
German wellig, wogend
- welligfull of billows or surges
- wogendfull of billows or surges
Māori tāpokopoko
- tāpokopokofull of billows or surges
Spanish onduloso
- ondulosofull of billows or surges
Turkish dalga dalga, dalgalı
- dalga dalgafull of billows or surges
- dalgalıfull of billows or surges
Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with billowy
All rhymes →Cite this entry
billowy. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/billowy
“billowy.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/billowy. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “billowy,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/billowy.
Source: billowy on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.