bower

Meanings

Noun

• A bedroom or private apartments, especially for a woman in a medieval castle.
• A dwelling; a picturesque country cottage, especially one that is used as a retreat.
• A shady, leafy shelter or recess in a garden or woods.
• A large structure made of grass, twigs, etc., and decorated with bright objects, used by male bower birds during courtship displays.
• A peasant; a farmer.
• Either of the two highest trumps in euchre.
• A type of ship's anchor, carried at the bow.
• One who bows or bends.
• A muscle that bends a limb, especially the arm.
• One who plays any of several bow instruments, such as the musical bow or diddley bow.
• A young hawk, when it begins to leave the nest.

Verb

• To embower; to enclose.
• To lodge.

Related

Similar words

• boudoir

Origin

• From Middle English bour, from Old English būr, from Proto-Germanic *būraz ("room, abode"). Cognate with German Bauer ("birdcage"), Old Norse búr (Danish bur, Norwegian Bokmål bur, Swedish bur ("cage").
• From Middle English boueer, from Old English būr, ġebūr and Middle Dutch bouwer; both from Proto-Germanic *būraz, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰōw-. Cognate with German Bauer ("peasant, builder"), Dutch boer, buur, and Albanian burrë ("man, husband"). See boor, neighbor.
• From German Bauer.
• From the bow of a ship --er.
• From bow + -er.
• From bow + -er.
• From bough, compare brancher.