What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Billow vs Bellows - What's the difference?

billow | bellows |

As nouns the difference between billow and bellows

is that billow is a large wave, swell, surge, or undulating mass of something, such as water, smoke, fabric or sound while bellows is a device for delivering pressurized air in a controlled quantity to a controlled location at its most simple terms a bellows is a container which is deformable in such a way as to alter its volume which has an outlet or outlets where one wishes to blow air or bellows can be .

As verbs the difference between billow and bellows

is that billow is to surge or roll in billows while bellows is (bellow).

billow

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A large wave, swell, surge, or undulating mass of something, such as water, smoke, fabric or sound
  • * Cowper
  • whom the winds waft where'er the billows roll
  • * 18?? , :
  • And the brooklet has found the billow / Though they flowed so far apart.
  • * 1922 , :
  • Have the swirling sands engulfed them, on a noon of storm when the desert rose like the sea, and rolled its tawny billows on the walled gardens of the green and fragrant lands?

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To surge or roll in billows
  • * 1920 , , The Understanding Heart , Chapter II:
  • During the preceding afternoon a heavy North Pacific fog had blown in … Scudding eastward from the ocean, it had crept up and over the redwood-studded crests of the Coast Range mountains,
  • To swell out or bulge
  • References

    bellows

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) belwes, plural of belu, belw, a northern form of beli, from (etyl) . Compare German (m). See also (m).

    Noun

  • A device for delivering pressurized air in a controlled quantity to a controlled location. At its most simple terms a bellows is a container which is deformable in such a way as to alter its volume which has an outlet or outlets where one wishes to blow air.
  • * , chapter=8
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=That concertina was a wonder in its way. The handles that was on it first was wore out long ago, and he'd made new ones of braided rope yarn. And the bellows was patched in more places than a cranberry picker's overalls.}}
  • Any flexible container or enclosure, as one used to cover a moving joint.
  • (informal, or, archaic) The lungs.
  • (photography) Flexible, light-tight enclosures connecting the lensboard and the camera back.
  • Usage notes
    * "Bellows" is used with both singular and plural verbs. One can even find "A bellows is/was".

    Etymology 2

    See bellow

    Noun

    (head)
  • Verb

    (head)
  • (bellow)
  • Anagrams

    *