Dustbowl
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An area which abounds in dust and which is very dry.
"Concepts like reform, sanctions or KwaNatal indabas have little meaning in this dustbowl, which is host to more than a million people relocated from "white" farms and "black spots" in Natal, apart from the hundreds of thousands who lived there before the removals started here in the Sixties."
- 2 The central region of the United States during the 1930s.
"Because of this general situation, namely, the factor that thousands of citizens in California because of evictions and suspension of income were forced to move into squatter camps, and that these squatter camps were to some extent used by the state and county for the purpose of segregating the destitute unemployed, many such communities were actually in existence in California by 1933 when the dustbowl influx began to make itself felt in this state."
- 3 The 1930s period.
Example
More examples"Concepts like reform, sanctions or KwaNatal indabas have little meaning in this dustbowl, which is host to more than a million people relocated from "white" farms and "black spots" in Natal, apart from the hundreds of thousands who lived there before the removals started here in the Sixties."
Etymology
From dust + bowl.
Related phrases
More for "dustbowl"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.