Dust Bowl

[duhst bohl]

noun

1. a period, throughout the 1930s, when waves of severe drought and dust storms in the North American prairies occurred, having devastating consequences for the residents, livestock, and agriculture there.

   When the Dust Bowl began, the Great Depression was already underway—it was one disaster on top of another.

2. the region that suffered from these waves of drought and dust storms, including the entire U.S. Midwest and, in Canada, the southern prairies of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

   Our Oklahoma panhandle was smack dab in the center of that heartless Dust Bowl.

3. (lowercase),  any similar dry region elsewhere.

   Where we see the tragic formation of dust bowls in Asia and Africa, overgrazing is believed to be the main culprit.

dust bowl

¹

noun

1. a semiarid area in which the surface soil is exposed to wind erosion and dust storms occur

Dust Bowl

²

noun

1. the area of the south central US that became denuded of topsoil by wind erosion during the droughts of the mid-1930s

Dust Bowl

1. A parched region of the Great Plains, including parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas, where a combination of drought and soil erosion created enormous dust storms in the 1930s. The novel The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, describes the plight of the “Okies” and “Arkies” uprooted by the drought and forced to migrate to California.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Dust Bowl¹

An Americanism dating back to 1935–40

Example Sentences

Original tale “Scarecrow: The Reaping,” which began at Universal Studios Florida, mixes in jump scares with more natural-seeming frights, such as the aforementioned simulated dust bowl.

From Los Angeles Times

In the Great Plains, thousands abandoned their farms in the country’s “dust bowl” and headed for California.

From Salon

The Ogallala Aquifer, which rests beneath the Great Plains and was once thought inexhaustible, now drops several feet per year in some areas, turning what was once America’s breadbasket into tomorrow’s dust bowl.

From Salon

"When marketers and publicists realized that TikTok was their best hope for attention, they swarmed, turning the app into a conventional promotional dust bowl."

From BBC

Beneath the Golden Saucer there’s a dust bowl, a result of the power plants installed to fuel its neon lights.

From New York Times