Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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About this entry:
First published 1941 (SND Vol. II). Includes material from the 1976 and 2005 supplements.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

BOWL, n. Also bowet, boul, bouwl. A basin or vessel (Sc. 1782 J. Sinclair Ob. Sc. Dial. 172); the same as Eng. bowl, but pronounced in Sc. [bʌul] and often found in the dim. [bʌuli] (esp. in the north). Gen.Sc.Sc. 1965 Weekly Scotsman (4 March) 10:
Warm-hearted "neeburs" rallied to the stricken home with "bowels" of good home-made broth.ne.Sc. 1994 Alastair Mackie in James Robertson A Tongue in Yer Heid 96:
An auld man in his ingle-side cheer puffin at the het bouwl o his pipe wi the tin-kep on't.Ags.(D) 1922 J. B. Salmond Bawbee Bowden iv.:
[It] sent my bowlies fleein' i' the fluir.

Hence bowler = bowlman below (Bnff.² 1935).

Combs.: (1) bowlman, a male hawker of crockery; (2) boul-weft, yarn surreptiously abstracted from a customer's stock by yarnwinders and privately sold to weavers (see quot.); (3) bowlwoman, a woman who sells crockery.(1) Rnf. 1807 R. Tannahill Poems and Songs 113:
The Poor Bowlman's Remonstrance.(2) Ayr. a.1850 Crawfurd MSS. (N.L.S.) B. 111:
Warp is sent by small corks at Glasgow thither with Boul-weft so called because women who sell bowls were employed to buy it from Pirn-winders.(3) Sc. 1876 S. R. Whitehead Daft Davie, etc. 239:
Deep, black moss . . . that Jenny, the tinkler bowlwoman, was lost in one winter.