Word.ws English Dictionary

bowsing

bowsing is the present participle and gerund of bowse.

Meaning of bowse

Verb (1)

bowse (third-person singular simple present bowses, present participle bowsing, simple past and past participle bowsed)

  1. (archaic) To drink excessively and socially; to carouse.
    • O generous food!
      Drest as though bold Robin Hood,
      Would, with his maid Marian,
      Sup and bowse from horn and can.1820, John Keats, “Lines on the Mermaid Tavern”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC, page 131

Verb (2)

bowse (third-person singular simple present bowses, present participle bowsing, simple past and past participle bowsed)

  1. To haul or hoist (something) with a tackle.

See all 3 meanings of bowse

Phrases with bowsing

Questions about bowsing

What is bowsing the present participle and gerund of?
Bowsing is the present participle and gerund of bowse.

Words near bowsing in the dictionary

  1. bowside
  2. bowsie
  3. bowsier
  4. bowsies
  5. bowsiest
  6. bowsing
  7. bowsing ken
  8. bowsing kens
  9. bowsing-ken
  10. bowsing-kens
  11. bowsman

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bowsing (page history and authors); bowse (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “bowsing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bowsing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.