bower

See also: Bower

English

Pronunciation

Etymologies 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7:
(UK) IPA^(key): /baʊ.əɹ/, /baʊəɹ/
- Audio (RP) (file)
Rhymes: -aʊ.ə(ɹ), -aʊə(ɹ)
Etymologies 5 and 6:
(UK) IPA^(key): /bəʊ.əɹ/, /bəʊəɹ/
- Audio (RP) (file)
Rhymes: -əʊə(ɹ)

Etymology 1

From Middle English bour, from Old English būr, from Proto-Germanic *būraz (“room, abode”). Cognate with German Bauer (“birdcage”), Old Norse búr (“cage”) (Danish bur, Norwegian Bokmål bur, Swedish bur).

Noun

bower (plural bowers)

A bedroom or private apartments, especially for a woman in a medieval castle.
- c. 1572, George Gascoigne, A Lady being both wronged by false suspect, and also wounded by the durance of hir husband, doth thus bewray hir grief.
  Give me my lute in bed now as I lie, / And lock the doors of mine unlucky bower.
(literary) A dwelling; a picturesque country cottage, especially one that is used as a retreat.
- 1748, William Shenstone, to William Lyttleton Esq.
  While friends arrived in circles gay,
  To visit Damon's bower
- 1818, John Keats, “Book I”, in Endymion: A Poetic Romance, London: […] [T. Miller] for Taylor and Hessey, […], OCLC 1467112, lines 1–5, page 3:
  A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: / Its loveliness increases; it will never / Pass into nothingness; but still will keep / A bower quiet for us, and a sleep / Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
A shady, leafy shelter or recess in a garden or woods.
- 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene i]:
  […] say that thou overheard'st us,
  And bid her steal into the pleached bower,
  Where honey-suckles, ripen'd by the sun,
  Forbid the sun to enter; […]
- 1979, J.G. Ballard, The Unlimited Dream Company, chapter 30:
  The entire town mated together, in the leafy bowers that had sprung up among the washing-machines and television sets in the shopping mall, on the settees and divans by the furniture store, in the tropical paradises of the suburban gardens.
(ornithology) A large structure made of grass, twigs, etc., and decorated with bright objects, used by male bower birds during courtship displays.

Alternative forms

bowre (obsolete)

Synonyms

boudoir

Derived terms

bower vine
lady's bower
virgin's bower

Translations

a woman's bedroom or private apartments, especially in a medieval castle

Bulgarian: будоар m (budoar)
Chinese:
Mandarin: 閨房／闺房 (zh) (guīfáng)
Esperanto: buduaro
Finnish: buduaari (fi), budoaari (fi)
French: boudoir (fr) m
German: Boudoir (de) n, Frauengemach (de) n, Kemenate (de) f
Greek: μπουντουάρ (el) n (bountouár)
Hungarian: budoár (hu)
Middle English: bour
Polish: buduar (pl) m, alkierz (pl) m
Russian: будуа́р (ru) m (buduár)
Spanish: tocador m
Swedish: budoar (sv)
Ukrainian: будуа́р (uk) (buduár)

(literary) A dwelling; a picturesque country cottage

German: Sommerhaus (de) n, Landhaus (de) n, Landhäuschen n
Hungarian: lak (hu)
Middle English: bour

a leafy shelter or recess in a garden or woods

Czech: loubí (cs) n, besídka f
Esperanto: laŭbo
German: Gartenlaube (de) f (in a garden), Laube (de) f, schattiges Plätzchen n
Greek: κληματαριά (el) f (klimatariá), αναδενδράδα f (anadendráda)
Irish: lúibín coille m
Kurdish:
Central Kurdish: کەپر‎ (ku) (kepir)
Latin: trichila f, triclea f
Turkish: kameriye (tr)
Ukrainian: альта́нка (uk) (alʹtánka), курі́нь (uk) (kurínʹ)
Welsh: deildy m

(ornithology) A large structure made of grass and bright objects

German: Laube (de) f

Verb

bower (third-person singular simple present bowers, present participle bowering, simple past and past participle bowered)

To embower; to enclose.
- c. 1591–1595, Shakespeare, William, Romeo and Juliet, act 3, scene 2, lines 80–82:
  O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell / When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend / In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?
- 1907, Harold Bindloss, chapter 1, in The Dust of Conflict‎:
  […] belts of thin white mist streaked the brown plough land in the hollow where Appleby could see the pale shine of a winding river. Across that in turn, meadow and coppice rolled away past the white walls of a village bowered in orchards, […]
(obsolete) To lodge.
- 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “Marche. Aegloga Tertius.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Hugh Singleton, […], OCLC 606515406; reprinted as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, The Shepheardes Calender […], London: John C. Nimmo, […], 1890, OCLC 890162479:
  Flora now calleth forth each flower,
  And bids make readie Maias bower

Etymology 2

From Middle English boueer, from Old English būr, ġebūr (“freeholder of the lowest class, peasant, farmer”) and Middle Dutch bouwer (“farmer, builder, peasant”); both from Proto-Germanic *būraz (“dweller”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰōw- (“to dwell”). Cognate with German Bauer (“peasant, builder”), Dutch boer, buur, and Albanian burrë (“man, husband”). Doublet of boor and Boer. More at neighbour.

Noun

bower (plural bowers)

A peasant; a farmer.

Etymology 3

From German Bauer. A doublet of etymology 2 and of the German-origin surname Bauer.

Noun

bower (plural bowers)

Either of the two highest trumps in euchre.
- 1870, Bret Harte, Plain Language from Truthful James
  Yet the cards they were stocked / In a way that I grieve, / And my feelings were shocked / At the state of Nye's sleeve, / Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers, / And the same with intent to deceive.

Derived terms

best bower
left bower
right bower

Etymology 4

From the bow of a ship +‎ -er.

Noun

bower (plural bowers)

(nautical) A type of ship's anchor, carried at the bow.

Derived terms

best bower
bower anchor
small bower

Etymology 5

From bow (verb) +‎ -er.

Noun

bower (plural bowers)

One who bows or bends.
- 1977, Desmond Morris, Manwatching: A Field Guide to Human Behavior, page 144:
  The bower aims his display straight at the dominant figure, who may reciprocate with a milder version of the same action.
A muscle that bends a limb, especially the arm.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938:
  His rawbone armes, whose mighty brawned bowrs / Were wont to riue steele plates, and helmets hew

Etymology 6

From bow (noun) +‎ -er.

Noun

bower (plural bowers)

One who plays any of several bow instruments, such as the musical bow or diddley bow.

Derived terms

diddley bower

Etymology 7

From bough, compare brancher.

Noun

bower (plural bowers)

(obsolete, falconry) A young hawk, when it begins to leave the nest.

References

bower in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

Anagrams

bowre