Meaning & use
rowel
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Meanings
nouncountable
A small wheel with sharp points, attached to the end of a rider's spur and used to urge a horse forward.
Grammar: Countable: one rowel, two rowels. It is the wheel itself, not the whole spur.
Patterns
- the rowel of a spur
- a sharp rowel
The knight's spur had a silver rowel that glinted in the sun.
He pressed the rowel gently against the horse's side to ask for a faster pace.
Modern spurs often have a blunt rowel to avoid injuring the horse.
verbtransitiveliteraryrare
To prick a horse with the rowel of a spur.
Grammar: Takes an object: rowel the horse. Rare except in historical or literary writing.
Patterns
- rowel a horse
- rowel the horse's flank
The rider roweled his mount to urge it across the stream.
She roweled the horse once, then let it find its own pace.
Word forms
| plural | rowels |
|---|---|
| third person singular | rowels |
| past tense | roweled |
| past participle | roweled |
| -ing form | roweling |
Common combinations
- spur rowel
- The spur rowel was caked with mud after the ride.
- sharp rowel
- A sharp rowel can hurt the horse if used carelessly.
- rowel of a spur
- He replaced the rowel of his spur with a smoother one.
Synonyms and how they differ
- spur
- Spur means the whole device worn on the heel, while rowel is only the spiked wheel at its end.
Word family
- roweled adjective
- Fitted with a rowel, as in a roweled spur.
Commonly confused: rowel or rowan? rowel or trowel?
rowel vs rowan
Rowan is a tree with red berries; rowel is a part of a spur. They sound similar but are unrelated.
rowel vs trowel
A trowel is a small hand tool for digging or spreading; a rowel is a spiked wheel on a spur.
Practice
The rider touched the horse's side with the ______ of his spur.
Choose one answer.
Rowel is the spiked wheel at the end of a spur, which is what touches the horse. Trowel and rowan are unrelated words that sound similar; spur is the whole device, not the wheel itself.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “rowel”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.