billow

Word family

bil·low1 /ˈbɪləʊ $ -loʊ/ verb [intransitiveI] → below

1 (also billow out)AIR if something made of cloth billows, it moves in the wind 〔布制品在风中〕飘动，扬起，鼓起

Her long skirt billowed in the breeze.

她的长裙在微风中飘动。

2 UPif a cloud or smoke billows, it rises in a round mass 〔云或烟〕团团升起，滚滚升起

billow out of/up etc

There was smoke billowing out of the windows.

窗户里冒出滚滚浓烟。

Examples from the Corpus

billow• The cuffs of his gray trousers billow.• Plumes of radioactive smoke were billowing around the helicopter.• The screens were around the bed and the draught from the door set them billowing like sails.• Smoke billowed out of the chimney.• Clouds of smoke billowed out so the teams crouched down to avoid inhaling the poisonous fumes.• She laughed and spun around and gave me a look of her yellow leg when the skirt billowed out.• Thick smoke billowed up a narrow staircase and smothered the sleeping youngsters in their second-floor bedroom.• Car parks, stuffed with cars, seem to billow up in places like fabric, as the wind catches them underneath.

Related topics: Nature, Water

billow2 noun [countableC usually plural]

1. DNDCa moving cloud or mass of something such as smoke or cloth 翻滚的云 [烟]；翻卷飘动的东西

2. literaryTTW a wave, especially a very large one 波涛；〔尤指〕巨浪

Examples from the Corpus

billow• The kids and Bill exhale billows of steam as they stand around; resting up for the next charge through the brush.• In order to stop it going out he drew hard on it and exhaled billows of smoke into the car.• In grey billows, it rolled into nothing, into the mist which was already descending.• Then she disappeared beneath the billows.• Their fingers skim on the silk as the unwieldy billows of parachute flatten like sea-waves, oiled, folded in sevens.• A farmer was burning straw, the yellow billows of smoke spiralling lazily upward.

Origin billow2

(1500-1600) Probably from Old Norse bylgja

Chinese

Syllable

Corpus