From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishbillowbil‧low1 /ˈbɪləʊ $ -loʊ/ verb [intransitive] 1 (also billow out)AIR if something made of cloth billows, it moves in the wind Her long skirt billowed in the breeze.2 UPif a cloud or smoke billows, it rises in a round massbillow out of/up etc There was smoke billowing out of the windows.→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
billow• The cuffs of his gray trousers billow.• Plumes of radioactive smoke were billowing around the helicopter.• The screens were around the bed and the draught from the door set them billowing like sails.• Smoke billowed out of the chimney.• Clouds of smoke billowed out so the teams crouched down to avoid inhaling the poisonous fumes.• She laughed and spun around and gave me a look of her yellow leg when the skirt billowed out.• Thick smoke billowed up a narrow staircase and smothered the sleeping youngsters in their second-floor bedroom.• Car parks, stuffed with cars, seem to billow up in places like fabric, as the wind catches them underneath.billowbillow2 noun [countable usually plural] 1 DNDCa moving cloud or mass of something such as smoke or cloth2 literaryTTW a wave, especially a very large oneExamples from the Corpus
billow• The kids and Bill exhale billows of steam as they stand around; resting up for the next charge through the brush.• In order to stop it going out he drew hard on it and exhaled billows of smoke into the car.• In grey billows, it rolled into nothing, into the mist which was already descending.• Then she disappeared beneath the billows.• Their fingers skim on the silk as the unwieldy billows of parachute flatten like sea-waves, oiled, folded in sevens.• A farmer was burning straw, the yellow billows of smoke spiralling lazily upward.Origin billow2 (1500-1600) Probably from Old Norse bylgja 