bowre

Noun (1)

bower (plural bowers)

1. A bedroom or private apartments, especially for a woman in a medieval castle.
   • Give me my lute in bed now as I lie, / And lock the doors of mine unlucky bower.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.
2. (literary) A dwelling; a picturesque country cottage, especially one that is used as a retreat.
   • While friends arrived in circles gay,
     To visit Damon's bower1748, William Shenstone, to William Lyttleton Esq.
3. A shady, leafy shelter or recess in a garden or woods.
   • […]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;[…]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]...
4. A large structure made of grass, twigs, etc., and decorated with bright objects, used by male bower birds during courtship displays.

Noun (2)

bower (plural bowers)

1. A peasant; a farmer.

Noun (3)

bower (plural bowers)

1. Either of the two highest trumps in the card games euchre and five hundred (where the joker is omitted).
   • 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.1870, Bret Harte, Plain Language from Truthful James

See all 14 meanings of bower