Meaning & use
bowie
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Meaning
nouncountable
A heavy hunting knife with a long, single-edged blade whose tip curves in a clip shape, named after the American frontiersman James Bowie.
Grammar: A common noun, usually seen as bowie knife; the shortened form is informal.
Patterns
- carry a bowie
- a bowie with a leather sheath
The trapper kept a bowie at his belt for skinning game.
He sharpened the bowie before the camping trip.
A rusty bowie hung over the fireplace in the old cabin.
Word forms
| plural | bowies |
|---|
Common combinations
- bowie knife
- The museum displays a bowie knife from the 1830s.
- carry a bowie
- Frontiersmen often carried a bowie for protection.
- sharpen a bowie
- He sharpened his bowie on a flat stone.
- clip-point bowie
- A clip-point bowie is good for hunting and camp tasks.
- leather sheath
- The bowie slid into a worn leather sheath.
Synonyms and how they differ
- hunting knife
- Hunting knife is a general category, whereas bowie names one specific large clip-point design.
- sheath knife
- Sheath knife describes any fixed blade carried in a cover, not just the bowie shape.
- machete
- A machete is a long, broad blade for cutting plants, much less pointed and specialized than a bowie.
Word family
- bowie knife noun
- the full name of the weapon
- clip point noun
- the blade shape with a concave cut-away near the tip
- knife noun
- a blade with a handle for cutting
Commonly confused: bowie or Bowie?
bowie vs Bowie
With a capital B, Bowie usually refers to the singer David Bowie or the frontiersman James Bowie, not the knife.
Practice
A bowie is best described as a ___.
Choose one answer.
A bowie is a large fixed-blade hunting knife. The other options are different tools or clothing.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “bowie”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.