a. [f. BILLOW sb. + -Y1.]

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  1.  Characterized by billows.

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c. 1615.  Chapman, Odyss., V. 345. The billowie ocean.

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1798.  Anti-Jacobin, 21 May (1852), 142. Biscay’s billowy bay.

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1865.  Geikie, Scen. & Geol. Scot., ii. 75. Crests and troughs of a billowy sea.

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  2.  Of, pertaining to, or of the nature of billows.

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1791.  Huddesford, Salmagundi, i. 24. And elevate his trembling mast Above the billowy precipice.

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1860.  Tyndall, Glac., I. § 4. 36. The … horizon of the lake presented a billowy tumultuous appearance.

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1884.  W. C. Smith, Kildrostan, 87. The bounding sea, And billowy roll of life.

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  3.  transf. Cf. BILLOW sb. 3.

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1726.  Thomson, Winter, 273. O’er the hapless flocks … The billowy tempest whelms.

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1789.  Coleridge, Nose. On billowy flames of fire I float.

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1847.  L. Hunt, Man, Women, & Bks., I. viii. 133. The great blue billowy domains of heather.

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  4.  comb. (advb. and parasynthetic.)

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1855.  Browning, Men & Wom., Last Ride. Some western cloud All billowy-bosomed.

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1876.  Swinburne, Erechtheus (ed. 2), 45. Broad strength of billowy-beating war.

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