cower

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkaʊɚ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkaʊə/

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• Rhymes: -aʊ.ə(ɹ)

From Middle English couren, cowre, from Middle Low German kûren (“to lie in wait; linger”) or from North Germanic (Icelandic kúra (“to doze”)). Cognate with German kauern (“to squat”), Dutch koeren (“to keep watch (in a cowered position)”), Serbo-Croatian kutriti (“to lie in a bent position”), Swedish kura (“huddle, cower”). Unrelated to coward, which is of Latin origin.

cower (third-person singular simple present cowers, present participle cowering, simple past and past participle cowered)

1. (intransitive) To crouch or cringe, or to avoid or shy away from something, in fear.

   He'd be useless in war. He'd just cower in his bunker until the enemy came in and shot him, or until the war was over.

   • 1700, John Dryden, "The Cock and the Fox", in Fables, Ancient and Modern, published March 1700:

     Our dame sits cowering o'er a kitchen fire.

2. (intransitive, archaic) To crouch in general.
   • 1764, Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller:

     Some sterner virtues o’er the mountain’s breast
     May sit, like falcons, cowering on the nest

   • 1801, Robert Southey, “(please specify the page)”, in Thalaba the Destroyer, volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] [F]or T[homas] N[orton] Longman and O[wen] Rees, […], by Biggs and Cottle, […], →OCLC:

     The mother bird had mov’d not,
     But cowering o’er her nestlings,
     Sate confident and fearless,
     And watch’d the wonted guest.

3. (transitive) To cause to cower; to frighten into submission.
   • 1895, Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor and Industry of Kansas:

     This done, their doubts will vanish, and they will stand confronted by an object lesson which must have the effect either to arouse them to a determination to banish despotism from the land, or cower them into submission and servitude.

   • 2007, DJ Birmingham, The Queen's Tale: The Struggle for the Survival of Ireland, page 170:

     My spirit will cower them and make them wish they had never risen up against me.

   • 2010, Marilyn Brown Oden, The Dead Saint:

     A vicious Mafia threat intended to cower him—but the chief doesn't cower.

• coward
• cowardice

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

cower (third-person singular simple present cowers, present participle cowering, simple past and past participle cowered)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To cherish with care.

• Crowe