bowl vs bowls

bowl

noun
  • The game of bowls. 

  • A dish comprising a mix of different foods, not all of which need be cooked, served in a bowl. 

  • The ball rolled by players in the game of lawn bowls. 

  • The action of bowling a ball. 

  • An elliptical-shaped stadium or amphitheater resembling a bowl. 

  • A haircut in which straight hair is cut at an even height around the edges, forming a bowl shape. 

  • A rounded portion of a glyph that encloses empty space, as in the letters d and o. 

  • A round crater (or similar) in the ground. 

  • A postseason football competition, a bowl game (i.e. Rose Bowl, Super Bowl) 

  • The part of a spoon that holds content, as opposed to the handle. 

  • A roughly hemispherical container used to hold, mix or present food, such as salad, fruit or soup, or other items. 

  • As much as is held by a bowl. 

  • Part of a pipe, bong, or other smoking implement that holds the material to be burned. 

  • The round hollow part of anything. 

verb
  • To roll or throw (a ball) in the correct manner in cricket and similar games and sports. 

  • To play bowling or a similar game. 

  • To roll or carry smoothly on, or as on, wheels. 

  • To pelt or strike with anything rolled. 

  • To throw the ball (in cricket and similar games and sports). 

bowls

noun
  • A ball used in the game of bowls 

  • A precision sport where the goal is to roll biased balls (weighted on one side, and called bowls) closer to a smaller white ball (the jack or kitty) than one's opponent is able to do. 

How often have the words bowl and bowls occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )