bower
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A shady, leafy shelter or recess in a garden or woods.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
bowerSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbaʊɚ
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
A shady, leafy shelter or recess in a garden or woods.
literary
A dwelling; a picturesque country cottage, especially one that is used as a retreat.
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 bedroom or private apartments, especially for a woman in a medieval castle.
verb
To embower; to enclose.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A shady, leafy shelter or recess in a garden or woods.
Used this way, bower is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- 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.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
A street in Manhattan noted for cheap hotels frequented by homeless derelicts.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Climbing Asiatic vine having long finely serrate leaves and racemes of white flowers followed by greenish-yellow edible fruit.
Climber of northeastern North America having waxy purplish-blue flowers.
Common climber of eastern North America that sprawls over other plants and bears numerous panicles of small creamy white flowers.
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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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.