Today’s word, bowser, has been mentioned a lot on the radio and on TV here recently. In the UK a bowser is a mobile water tank used to supply fresh water in emergency situations, such as the recent/current floods, where normal supplies have broken down or are insufficient.
You can see some examples of water bowsers here.
Bowsers got their name from Sylvanus Bowser, an early designer of petrol pumps in Australia who founded the the company, S.F. Bowser, Inc., a pioneer in the production of fuel handling and oil purification equipment. Bowser is used as a trade name for petrol pumps in Australia and Canada, and the word’s meaning has expanded to cover other kinds of pumps, and also water tanks and fuel tanks.
It’s the name of a dog:
http://www.dogsabc.com/b_dog_names/dog-names-bowser.html
And…
http://images.google.com/images?q=bowser&hl=en&um=1&sa=X&oi=images&ct=title
this guy who you may or may not know.
I thought it sounded like a dog’s name!
well I guess it would be called here as “tanker” like the usual car that transfer water. We use “tanker” in our dialect as it is in english 🙂
I never hear “bowser” used in the U.S.–unless it’s for Bowser Koopa, in the Mario games!!
I thought it was those things you hold in your hands to divine the future.
thanks everybody for mentioning the nintendo character. i feared i would be the only one.
“I thought it was those things you hold in your hands to divine the future. ”
Declan
Think you might be getting mixed up with a dowser, who is a person who holds the dowsing rods.
Regards
S
That’s exactly what I was thinking of Stuart.