bow
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A slightly curved piece of resilient wood with taut horsehair strands.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
bowIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbaʊ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
archery
A slightly curved piece of resilient wood with taut horsehair strands; used in playing certain stringed instruments
archery
A weapon for shooting arrows, composed of a curved piece of resilient wood with a taut cord to propel the arrow
archery
A weapon made of a curved piece of wood or other flexible material whose ends are connected by a string, used for shooting arrows.
music
A rod with horsehair (or an artificial substitute) stretched between the ends, used for playing various stringed musical instruments.
A stringed instrument (chordophone), consisting of a stick with a single taut cord stretched between the ends, most often played by plucking.
A curved bend in a rod or planar surface, or in a linear formation such as a river.
verb
To play music on (a stringed) instrument using a bow.
Bend the head or the upper part of the body in a gesture of respect or greeting
intransitive
To bend oneself as a gesture of respect or deference.
transitivefigurative
To exercise powerful or controlling influence over; to bend or incline, figuratively; to humble or subdue.
About to
To make the sound of a dog, to bark, to bow-wow
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A slightly curved piece of resilient wood with taut horsehair strands; used in playing certain stringed instruments
Used this way, bow is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It stays understated rather than dramatic. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Mild
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use bow
- “He pointed the bow of the boat toward the finish line.”noun
- “The government bowed to the military pressure.”verb
- “He bowed before the King.”verb
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.