Phonetic loan from English 'bowling', bǎo-líng. The full term is
保龄球 (bǎolíngqiú, 'bowling ball'), but
保龄 alone is widely used colloquially:
打保龄 ('to bowl'),
保龄馆 ('bowling alley'). The characters
保 (protect) +
龄 (age) carry no meaning here, just sound.
