Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Present participle of rowel.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • There is no such mortal enemy of genius as poverty except riches: a touch of the spur from time to time does good; but a constant rowelling disables.

    Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions 2007

  • My cousins were mere cubs, in whose company I might, if I liked it, unlearn whatever decent manners, or elegant accomplishments, I had acquired, but where I could attain no information beyond what regarded worming dogs, rowelling horses, and following foxes.

    Rob Roy 2005

  • There must have been at least twenty cavalrymen rowelling their horses down the cart track.

    Sharpe's Waterloo Cornwell, Bernard, 1944- 1990

  • Time and again they swayed in their saddles and would have fallen had it not been for the men beside them, who had let go the bridles to steady the boys, at the same time rowelling their own mounts.

    Comrades of the Saddle The Young Rough Riders of the Plains Frank V. Webster

  • After a time the ponies began to slacken their stride, but the vigorous rowelling they received from the spurs of the men on their backs told them they were bound on pressing business, and they responded gamely.

    Comrades of the Saddle The Young Rough Riders of the Plains Frank V. Webster

  • As I crossed the interminable length of floor that separated me from the door I could feel that contemptuous smile rowelling my shrinking vertebræ.

    Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, 1920-02-04 Various

  • There is no such mortal enemy of genius as poverty except riches: a touch of the spur from time to time does good; but a constant rowelling disables.

    Oscar Wilde Harris, Frank 1916

  • For, what great, black horse is this which, despite Carnaby's flailing whip and cruel, rowelling spur, is slowly, surely creeping up with the laboring gray?

    The Amateur Gentleman Jeffery Farnol 1915

  • Carnaby is rowelling savagely, yet, neck and neck, the sorrel and the gray race for the jump, with Barnabas and the Marquis behind.

    The Amateur Gentleman Jeffery Farnol 1915

  • Now, with the gathering cloud, came sudden fear to clutch at his heart with icy fingers, a shivering dread lest, after all, he be too late; and, clenching sweating palms, Barnabas groaned, and in that moment "The Terror" leapt snorting beneath the rowelling spur.

    The Amateur Gentleman Jeffery Farnol 1915

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