Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who or that which bows or bends; specifically, a muscle that bends the joints.
  • noun A dwelling or habitation; particularly, a cottage; an unpretentious residence; a rustic abode.
  • noun An inner room; any room in a house except the hall or public room; hence, a bedchamber.
  • noun Especially, a lady's private chamber; a boudoir.
  • noun A shelter made with boughs or twining plants; an arbor; a shady recess.
  • To inclose in a bower, or as in a bower; embower; inclose.
  • To take shelter; lodge.
  • noun An anchor carried at the bow of a ship.
  • noun In euchre, one of the two highest cards, or, if the joker is used, the second or third highest.
  • noun In falconry, a young hawk when it begins to leave the nest and to clamber on the boughs. Also called bowess, bowet.
  • noun A bow-maker; a bowyer.
  • noun One who plays with a bow on a violin or other stringed instrument.
  • noun A peasant; a farmer.
  • noun A person who rents or leases the dairy stock on a farm, together with pasture and fodder for them, and makes what he can from their produce, the cultivation of the farm still remaining with the farmer or proprietor.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Anciently, a chamber; a lodging room; esp., a lady's private apartment.
  • noun A rustic cottage or abode; poetically, an attractive abode or retreat.
  • noun A shelter or covered place in a garden, made with boughs of trees or vines, etc., twined together; an arbor; a shady recess.
  • intransitive verb obsolete To lodge.
  • noun One who bows or bends.
  • noun (Naut.) An anchor carried at the bow of a ship.
  • noun obsolete A muscle that bends a limb, esp. the arm.
  • noun See the Note under Anchor.
  • noun (Falconry), obsolete A young hawk, when it begins to leave the nest.
  • transitive verb To embower; to inclose.
  • noun One of the two highest cards in the pack commonly used in the game of euchre.
  • noun the knave of the trump suit, the highest card (except the “Joker”) in the game.
  • noun the knave of the other suit of the same color as the trump, being the next to the right bower in value.
  • noun in some forms of euchre and some other games, an extra card sometimes added to the pack, which takes precedence of all others as the highest card.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A woman's bedroom or private apartments, especially in a medieval castle.
  • noun literary A dwelling; a picturesque country cottage, especially one that is used as a retreat.
  • noun A shady, leafy shelter or recess in a garden or woods.
  • noun ornithology A large structure made of grass and bright objects, used by the bower bird during courtship displays.
  • noun nautical A type of ship's anchor, carried at the bow.
  • noun Either of the two highest trumps in euchre.
  • noun obsolete, falconry A young hawk, when it begins to leave the nest.
  • noun A peasant; a farmer.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb enclose in a bower
  • noun a framework that supports climbing plants

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English būr, from Proto-Germanic *būraz. Cognate with German Bauer ("birdcage"), Old Norse búr (Danish bur, Swedish bur ("cage")).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the bow of a ship

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From German Bauer.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From bough, compare brancher.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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"). See boor, neighbor.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word bower.

Examples

  • Technically, a bower is a depression in the earth similar to, but smaller than a valley.

    William Blake and the Study of Virtual Space: Adapting 'The Crystal Cabinet' to a New Medium 2005

  • When I say my own circle, I mean by it my three plantations, viz., my castle, my country seat, which I called my bower, and my enclosure in the woods.

    Robinson Crusoe 1895

  • When I say my own circle, I mean by it my three plantations, viz., my castle, my country seat, which I called my bower, and my enclosure in the woods.

    Robinson Crusoe Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731 1895

  • Yet I entertained such an abhorrence of the savage wretches that I have been speaking of, and of the wretched, inhuman custom of their devouring and eating one another up, that I continued pensive and sad, and kept close within my own circle for almost two years after this: when I say my own circle, I mean by it my three plantations - viz. my castle, my country seat (which I called my bower), and my enclosure in the woods: nor did I look after this for any other use than an enclosure for my goats; for the aversion which nature gave me to these hellish wretches was such, that I was as fearful of seeing them as of seeing the devil himself.

    Robinson Crusoe 1719

  • "Oh, no, Dorry, you mustn't be hungry till the bower is ready!" cried the little girls, alarmed, for Dorry was apt to be disconsolate if he was kept waiting for his meals.

    What Katy Did: A Story 1887

  • a symbol of rampant female sexuality, the bower is a ubiquitous image throughout the eighteenth-century, appearing in texts ranging from Thompson's The

    'Pleasure is now, and ought to be, your business': Stealing Sexuality in Jane Austen's _Juvenilia_ 2006

  • Something happened to the "bower" -- an unromantic workman mowed it down -- but by this time there was a little house there which Mrs. Clemens had built, just for the children.

    The Boys' Life of Mark Twain Paine, Albert Bigelow, 1861-1937 1916

  • Something happened to the "bower" -- an unromantic workman mowed it down -- but by this time there was a little house there which Mrs. Clemens had built, just for the children.

    The Boys' Life of Mark Twain Albert Bigelow Paine 1899

  • As Sheyrena had gradually come to understand, the distinction between the bower and the harem was that the bower was a harem of one.

    Elvenblood Lackey, Mercedes 1995

  • Whither they went, or how they bestowed their time that evening, the Spaniards said they did not know; but it seems they wandered about the country part of the night, and them lying down in the place which I used to call my bower, they were weary and overslept themselves.

    The Further Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731. Robinson Crusoe 1958

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • In castle architecture, the lady's apartment or suite; a withdrawing room or sleeping apartment.

    August 24, 2008

  • 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.

    - J.Keats

    December 12, 2008

  • "Who knows what you've spoken to the darkness, in the bitter watches of the night... when all your life seems to shrink, the walls of your bower closing in about you... a hutch to trammel some wild thing in. So fair. So cold. Like a morning of pale spring still clinging to winter's chill." (Grima, The Two Towers)

    December 12, 2008