A variant or dialectal spelling of bowline, a type of knot used in sailing.
Variant of 'bowline' with simplified spelling, possibly influenced by pronunciation. Bowline itself comes from 'bow' + 'line' referring to a rope attached to the bow of a ship.
This alternate spelling shows how nautical jargon has regional variations—sailors from different ports had different ways of saying the same knot, and these differences got frozen in documents!
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