dowle

English

Alternative forms

• dowl, doul

Etymology

Compare Old French douille (“soft”), and English ductile.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈdaʊl/
• Rhymes: -aʊl
• Homophone: dowel

Noun

dowle

1. feathery or woolly down; filament of a feather
   • #*
     1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:

     You fools! I and my fellows
     Are ministers of fate: the elements
     Of whom your swords are temper'd may as well
     Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs
     Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish
     One dowle that's in my plume; […]

   • a. 1859, De Quincey, Notes on Godwin Foster and Hazlitt, at page 304 in the collected works' volume of 1864.

     No feather, or dowle of a feather, but was heavy enough for him.

Translations

filament of a feather

• Russian: боро́здка пера́ f (borózdka perá), пуши́нка (ru) f (pušínka)

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “dowle”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• dowel, lowed, owled, wolde