Boll
name, noun, verb ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 The rounded seed-bearing capsule of a cotton or flax plant.
"Sometimes the slave picks down one side of a row, and back upon the other, but more usually, there is one on either side, gathering all that has blossomed, leaving the unopened bolls for a succeeding picking."
- 2 the rounded seed-bearing capsule of a cotton or flax plant wordnet
- 3 A protuberance or excrescence growing on the trunks of some trees, a burl.
- 4 An old dry measure equal to six bushels. Scotland
"I ſowed on this Ground, without any Dung or Manure, a Lippy of Oats, from which I had a Boll wanting a Chopin."
- 1 To form a boll or seed vessel; to go to seed.
"The barley was in the ear, and the flax was bolled."
- 1 A surname from the Germanic languages.; A surname from German.
- 2 A surname from the Germanic languages.; A surname from Danish.
Example
More examples"Amédée Bollée built one of the first steam-powered automobiles in 1873."
Etymology
From Middle English bolle (“pod; shell”) and Middle Dutch bolle (“round object”); both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *bullô (“round object; bowl”). More at bowl.
* As a Danish and German surname, from Danish Bøll, German Böll. * Also as a German surname, from the personal name Baldo (see Bold). Compare Boell. * As an English surname, variant of Bull. * Also as an English surname, from the noun bowl. Compare Bowler. * As a Scottish surname, variant of Boyle.
Related phrases
More for "boll"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.