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Glite Dictionary
to bowl up

to bowl up

5.6
To put food into a bowl to serve it
  • phrasal verb
  • /boʊl ʌp/
translation icon : servir en un bol
  • She decided to bowl up some soup for dinner, making it easy for everyone to serve themselves.

Examples

  • It's easier to bowl up the pasta into individual servings for the party.

  • At the potluck, I will bowl up a big salad for everyone to enjoy.

  • Yeah, you'd think you'd have to gram out after that at some point or bowl up, but who knows?

Synonyms

to serve up
vsto bowl up
34 1.4

To give food or drink to people

focuses on presenting food in a round deep container for convenience
to dish up
vsto bowl up
  • Informal
3 2.2

To serve food onto plates for people to eat

focuses on presenting food in a round deep container rather than on plates

Surface Forms

bowl up infinitive
bowling up present participle
bows up third person singular
bowled up past
bowled up past participle

Morphology

bowl + up

The meaning 'to prepare or serve food in a bowl' is directly derivable from combining 'bowl' (a dish) with the particle 'up' indicating placement or completion (put into/into bowls). This follows common English verb+particle patterns (e.g., 'bottle up', 'box up') and is thus readily inferable by a B1 learner who knows the constituents.

Etymology

The phrasal verb bowl up comes from the simple image of taking food and putting it into a bowl while the particle up shows the action of placing it there. So, it now means 'to prepare or serve food in a bowl'.