To bowl over

“To bowl over” is a phrasal verb with two main meanings.

The first meaning of “to bowl over” is to knock someone or something to the ground.

Examples:

• Because she wasn’t looking where she was going, she bumped into her brother and bowled him over.
• When he was dusting the ornament, he was a bit careless and bowled it over.
• I was bowled over by the cyclist.

You can see that when someone is bowled over, they might be very surprised. That leads us the second meaning of “to bowl over”:  to astonish or to impress.

Examples:

• The first time I saw him I was bowled over by his good looks.
• He was absolutely bowled over by the concert.
• Lionel Messi always bowls people over by how well he plays.