bowl over

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

bowl over (third-person singular simple present bowls over, present participle bowling over, simple past and past participle bowled over)

1. (idiomatic) To overwhelm; to cause to fall to the ground.
   • 1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter VIII, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:

     This tribe lived largely upon the smaller animals which they bowled over with their stone hatchets after making a wide circle about their quarry and driving it so that it had to pass close to one of their number.

   • 2011 September 2, “Wales 2-1 Montenegro”, in BBC‎:

     The Celtic midfielder appeared to be bowled over by Milorad Pekovic but Italian referee Luca Banti waved play on.

   • 2023 October 12, HarryBlank, “Fire in the Hole”, in SCP Foundation‎, archived from the original on 22 May 2024:

     There was only one more guard between her and her goal, and despite her preparation, it almost all went south. The woman walked out of a door Fina hadn't even known was there, nearly bowling her over, and it was all she could do to bring the butt of the rifle up to smash the insurgent's nose in. She cried out, and Fina brought the butt 'round again, and this time the bone must have pierced the brain because the body went limp with a final, plaintive gurgle.

2. (idiomatic) To overwhelm with astonishment or wonder; to flabbergast.
3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bowl,‎ over.

• blow over, overblow, overbowl