What does embowelled mean?
Embowelled is the past tense and past participle of the verb "embowel," which means to remove the entrails of a person or animal — in other words, to disembowel. It is written with a double L in British English, while American English typically uses the single-L spelling "emboweled." In older literature the word carried a second, more figurative sense: to enclose something deep within, as though hidden in the bowels of the earth or the heart of a building, so that a poet might describe treasure as embowelled in rock. Today the word is uncommon and distinctly literary; contemporary writers overwhelmingly prefer "disembowelled" when describing evisceration, whether literal, as in field dressing game or forensic description, or figurative, as in criticism that leaves an argument gutted. Its survival is largely confined to historical fiction, translations of classical epics, and archaic registers.
verbPast tense and past participle of "embowel": to disembowel, i.e. to remove the entrails or intestines of a person or animal; in extended or archaic use, to enclose something deep within, as if within the bowels or interior of something.
- To have removed the entrails or intestines of (a body); disembowelled.
- (Archaic or poetic) To enclose or bury deep within something, as if within its innermost parts.
- (Rare, of stone or carving) Hollowed out from within.
"The anatomist embowelled the specimen with great care before beginning his dissection."
"The hunter embowelled the stag swiftly so that the meat would keep."
"In the old ballad, the slain knight lay embowelled upon the cold ground."
Before anatomy was polite, poets wrote of heroes 'embowelled' on the battlefield — a word that once did the grim work 'gutted' does today.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of embowelled
Embowel derives from the prefix em- (from Old French en-, ultimately Latin in-) combined with bowel, which itself comes via Old French bouel from Latin botellus, a diminutive meaning sausage or small intestine. The verb arose in Middle English, first recorded around the fifteenth century, and took its double-L past form embowelled in British usage under standard consonant-doubling rules. It shares its Latin root with related anatomical terms such as botany's unrelated-looking but actually distinct words only through botellus-derived forms like botulinum, the source of the toxin name.
Related word forms
How embowelled is actually used
Chiefly British spelling (double L). The word is rare and largely literary or historical today; modern writing almost always uses "disembowelled" for the literal sense. The extended sense of being enclosed deep within appears mostly in older poetry and prose.
Easily confused with embowelled
"Embodied" means given concrete form or including something, while "embowelled" means having had the entrails removed or being deeply enclosed.
"Disembowelled" is the standard modern term for removing entrails; "embowelled" is an older, chiefly literary variant carrying the same sense plus an archaic 'enclose within' meaning.