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bowery

noun
/ˈbaʊəɹi/

Etymology

Unexplained. Perhaps a topographic surname for someone who lived in a small cottage, from Middle English bour (“chamber, cottage”) or, alternatively, an occupational surname for someone who worked there.

  1. derived from bour

Definitions

  1. Structure with roof for shade but with no walls used for public gatherings. A pavilion.

    • The group performed in the old bowery, an open-air building with a roof of branches laid over vertical poles, the forerunner of the first tabernacle.
    • This year’s Easter egg hunt will be at the community bowery on Saturday, April 15.

  2. Sheltered by trees

    Sheltered by trees; leafy; shady.

    • Such a man had no chance whatever in this flowery and bowery little suburb.

  3. In the early settlements of New York State, USA, a farm or estate.

    • His estate, or bowery, as it was called, has ever continued in the possession of his descendants.
    • The emigrants [in New York] were scattered on boweries or plantations[…]
  4. ›+ 2 more definitions

    1. A surname from Middle English.

    2. A street and a district of New York City, whose residents were traditionally of a low…

      A street and a district of New York City, whose residents were traditionally of a low socioeconomic class.

      • We were seen quarrelling this afternoon in a saloon over on the Bowery.
      • […] sewer people, derelicts, bag ladies, undergrounders, and Bowery bums. Whatever the cause of their illness, as in Scanners, homeless people are victims but, more importantly, a threat to be eliminated.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for bowery. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA