Other forms: bowlers
In cricket, a bowler is the player who delivers the ball to the batter. A fast bowler, a spin bowler, the opening bowler.
Bowlers divide into pace and spin, and the arm must not straighten during delivery — that is what makes it bowling rather than throwing, and the rule has caused several careers' worth of argument. An over is six deliveries. A bowler is also a player in bowls or ten-pin bowling. Note the bowler hat, which is named after the Bowler brothers who made the first one in 1849.
1nounbowlerThe cricketer who delivers the ball to the batter.
“The bowler ran in fast and sent the ball straight at the stumps.”
2nounstiffA stiff round-topped hat.
“The businessman wore a dark suit and a black bowler.”
bowler is a player, or a hat.
Bowl plus -er. Bowl came from Old French boule, a ball, from Latin bulla. The hat is named after its makers rather than its shape, which is a coincidence of spelling.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰel-
Proto-Germanic
*bullǭ — ball, round vessel, bowl
Proto-West Germanic
*bollā
Old English
bolla
Middle English
bolle
English
bowl
English, today
bowler
Built from
From bowl + er. bowl comes from Middle English bolle, from Old English bolla, bolle (“bowl, cup, pot, beaker, measure”), from Proto-West Germanic bollā, from Proto-Germanic bullǭ (“ball, round vessel, bowl”). Cognate with frr bol (“bun, bread roll”), Middle Low German bolle, bole (“round object”), Dutch bol (“ball, sphere, scoop, dot”), German Bolle (“bulb”), Danish bolle (“bowl, bread roll”), Icelandic bolli (“cup”). a doublet of boule and pulla.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA