Also 6 bellow(e, 6–7 billowe. [Not known bef. 1550, but may have been in dial. use. App. a. ON. bylgja billow (in Da. bölge, Sw. bölja); cf. MHG. bulge; OHG. *bulga and OE. *bylge are not found; f. com. Teut. belgan to swell, swell up: see BELL v.1]
† 1. The swell on the ocean produced by the wind, or on a river or estuary by the tide. Obs.
1560. Jenkinson, in Hakluyt, Voy. (1589), 358. And much adoe to keepe our barke from sinking, the billowe was so great.
1614. Raleigh, Hist. World, I. iii. § 13. That branch of Indus … [is] so large and deepe, and by reason thereof so great a billow, as it endangered his whole Fleet.
2. prop. A great swelling wave of the sea, produced generally by a high wind; but often used as merely = Wave, and hence poetically for ‘the sea.’
1552. Huloet, Bellowe or waue of water.
1566. Gascoigne, Jocasta, III. (1575), 99 b. His barke with many a billowe beaten.
1596. Spenser, Prothal., 48. The gentle stream … bad his billowes spare To wet their silken feathers.
1601. Shaks., Jul. C., V. i. 67. Why now blow winde, swell Billow, And swimme Barke.
1611. Bible, Ps. xlii. 7. All thy waues, and thy billowes [Wyclif flodis, Coverd. waterflouds] are gone ouer me.
1712. Hughes, Spect., No. 467, ¶ 2. The Waves and Billows thro’ which he has steered.
1799. Scotland Descr. (ed. 2), 12. The Hebudian isles, on this side, protect it from the appulse of the billows of the open Atlantic Ocean.
1817. Wolfe, Burial Sir J. Moore. The foe and the stranger would tread o’er his head, And we far away on the billow.
b. fig. esp. of death as an overwhelming flood.
1592. trans. Junius on Rev. xii. 18. And provoke the nations that they might with their furious bellowes toss up and down.
1807. Crabbe, Par. Reg., III. 15. Till the last strong billow stops the breath.
1857. Heavysege, Saul (1869), 429. The billows black of death’s deep gulf.
3. transf. A great wave of flame, air, sound; a body of men sweeping onward, etc.
1667. Milton, P. L., I. 224. On each hand the flames … rowld In billows, leave i’ th’ midst a horrid Vale.
1854. Russell, The War, xxvi. (ed. 17), 173. Huge stately billows of armed men.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. § 25. 185. Billows of air … rolled over us with a long surging sound.
1872. Blackie, Lays Highl., 104. Let the billow of your pæans To Dunolly’s tower be borne.
4. Comb. and Attrib., as billow-crest, -roll, -swell, billow-beaten adj.; billow-bred a., reared or brought up on the sea; billow-rife a., full of, or beset with many, billows.
1597. Middleton, in Farr’s S. P. (1845), II. 536. The swans forsooke the quire of billow-roule.
1749. West, Pindar, in Johnson, Life, Wks. IV. 202. The billow-beaten side Of the foam-besilver’d main.
1855. Singleton, Virgil, I. 229. Upon the billow-crest hang these.
