cowl

noun

1. 1

   A monk's hood that can be pulled forward to cover the face; a robe with such a hood attached to it.

   c. 1536, William Tyndale, An Exposycyon vpon the v. vi. vii. Chapters of Mathewe, An Exposycyon of the syxte Capiter, And therfore al our monkes whose professyon was neuer to eate fleshe, set vp the Pope and toke dispensacyons bothe for that faste and also for theyr strayte rules, and made theyr strayte rules as wyde as the hodes of theyr cowles.

   "What differ more (you cry) than Crown and Cowl?" / I'll tell you, friend: a Wiſe man and a Fool.

   The hermit, as if wishing to answer to the confidence of his guest, threw back his cowl, and showed a round bullet head belonging to a man in the prime of life.

   The roof came down steep and black like a cowl, reaching out beyond the wide galleries that encircled the yellow stuccoed house.

2. 2

   A mask that covers the majority of the head.

3. 3

   A thin protective covering over all or part of an engine; also cowling.

   […] fire was spurting up from the torn engine cowl and glowing in the cockpit.

4. 4

   A usually hood-shaped covering used to increase the draft of a chimney and prevent backflow.

   In the extreme clearness of the atmosphere the line of every roof, the cowl of every chimney was perceptible […]

   I’m sure I’m very sorry, but it’s always this way when the wind’s in the east, sir, and we’ve tried ever so many sorts of cowls and chimney-pots, you’d be surprised.

5. 5

   A ship's ventilator with a bell-shaped top which can be swivelled to catch the wind and force it below.

   He flung himself at the port ventilator as though he meant to tear it out bodily and toss it overboard. All he did was to move the cowl round a few inches, with an enormous expenditure of force, and seemed spent in the effort.

6. 6

   A vertical projection of a ship's funnel that directs the smoke away from the bridge.

7. 7

   A monk.

verb

1. 1

   To cover with, or as if with, a cowl (hood).

   Why cowl thy face beneath the Mourner’s hood,

   But he by wild and way […] Rode till the star above the wakening sun, Beside that tower where Percivale was cowl’d [i.e. became a monk], Glanced from the rosy forehead of the dawn.

   The sky was cowled with cloud, all except a narrow chink where it met the horizon.

2. 2

   To wrap or form (something made of fabric) like a cowl.

   When he came downstairs from the bar with the whiskies, she had found a sweater for herself and had cowled a thick raincoat over Sligo.

   As the evenings got colder, he used to reach up and pull down the green baize cloth, and cowl it around himself and wear it like a kind of igloo.

3. 3

   To make a monk of (a person).

4. 4

   To scrape together

   COWL, scrape together. "Cowlin t'cinders up."

noun

1. 1

   obsoleteA vessel carried on a pole, a soe.

noun

1. 1

   A caul (the amnion which encloses the foetus before birth, especially that part of it which sometimes shrouds a baby’s head at birth).

   According to one of his accounts—and his accounts varied with his audience—he was the seventh son of a seventh son, and born with a cowl on his face […]

   1982, André Brink, A Chain of Voices, New York: William Morrow, Part 3, “Campher,” p. 331, […] I’d been born with a cowl, which from my earliest age prompted a wide variety of predictions about my future, alternately dire and enthusiastic.

adjective

1. 1

   cold

   An' bitther cowl; an' min' ye I had play,

Forms

plural

cowls

comparative

more cowl

superlative

most cowl

past tense

cowled

past participle

cowled

present participle

cowling

third person singular

cowls