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 Dictionary entry overview: What does billow mean? 

• BILLOW (noun)
  The noun BILLOW has 1 sense:

1. a large sea wave

  Familiarity information: BILLOW used as a noun is very rare.

• BILLOW (verb)
  The verb BILLOW has 4 senses:

1. rise up as if in waves

2. move with great difficulty

3. rise and move, as in waves or billows

4. become inflated

  Familiarity information: BILLOW used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BILLOW (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A large sea wave

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

billow; surge

Hypernyms ("billow" is a kind of...):

moving ridge; wave (one of a series of ridges that moves across the surface of a liquid (especially across a large body of water))

Derivation:

billow (rise and move, as in waves or billows)

billowy (characterized by great swelling waves or surges)

• BILLOW (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they billow    ... he / she / it billows   
Past simple: billowed   
Past participle: billowed   
-ing form: billowing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Rise up as if in waves

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Synonyms:

billow; wallow

Context example:

smoke billowed up into the sky

Hypernyms (to "billow" is one way to...):

soar; soar up; soar upwards; surge; zoom (rise rapidly)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "billow"):

cloud (billow up in the form of a cloud)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Something is ----ing PP

Sense 2

Meaning:

Move with great difficulty

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Context example:

The soldiers billowed across the muddy riverbed

Hypernyms (to "billow" is one way to...):

go; locomote; move; travel (change location; move, travel, or proceed, also metaphorically)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Sense 3

Meaning:

Rise and move, as in waves or billows

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Synonyms:

billow; heave; surge

Context example:

The army surged forward

Hypernyms (to "billow" is one way to...):

blow up; inflate (fill with gas or air)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Derivation:

billow (a large sea wave)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Become inflated

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

balloon; billow; inflate

Context example:

The sails ballooned

Hypernyms (to "billow" is one way to...):

expand (become larger in size or volume or quantity)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "billow"):

reflate (become inflated again)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Something is ----ing PP

 Context examples 

The wind blowing steady and gentle from the south, there was no contrariety between that and the current, and the billows rose and fell unbroken.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Till morning dawned I was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble rolled under surges of joy.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But when he came to the shore the wind was raging and the sea was tossed up and down in boiling waves, and the ships were in trouble, and rolled fearfully upon the tops of the billows.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Then, too, she loved nature, and with generous imagination he changed the scene of their reading—sometimes they read in closed-in valleys with precipitous walls, or in high mountain meadows, and, again, down by the gray sand-dunes with a wreath of billows at their feet, or afar on some volcanic tropic isle where waterfalls descended and became mist, reaching the sea in vapor veils that swayed and shivered to every vagrant wisp of wind.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

When some white-headed billows thundered on, and dashed themselves to pieces before they reached the land, every fragment of the late whole seemed possessed by the full might of its wrath, rushing to be gathered to the composition of another monster.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Then came another rush of sea-fog, greater than any hitherto—a mass of dank mist, which seemed to close on all things like a grey pall, and left available to men only the organ of hearing, for the roar of the tempest, and the crash of the thunder, and the booming of the mighty billows came through the damp oblivion even louder than before.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

So I must have lain for hours, continually beaten to and fro upon the billows, now and again wetted with flying sprays, and never ceasing to expect death at the next plunge.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The first represented clouds low and livid, rolling over a swollen sea: all the distance was in eclipse; so, too, was the foreground; or rather, the nearest billows, for there was no land.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Just as Ruth's face, in a momentary jealousy had called before his eyes a forgotten moonlight gale, and as Professor Caldwell made him see again the Northeast Trade herding the white billows across the purple sea, so, from moment to moment, not disconcerting but rather identifying and classifying, new memory-visions rose before him, or spread under his eyelids, or were thrown upon the screen of his consciousness.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I was drenched and terrified, and fell instantly back into my old position, whereupon the coracle seemed to find her head again and led me as softly as before among the billows.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)