bowed

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of bow.

   The dancers bowed deeply as the curtain fell.

   He bowed his head in prayer before the meal.

   Note

   A regular past form. One spelling covers the simple past (the dancers bowed) and the participle after have or be (they had bowed; his head was bowed). The verb behind it works both ways. Intransitively it is a gesture of deference or simply becoming curved. Transitively it makes something bend, from a head to a will, and figuratively it means humbled or subdued, as in bowed by grief.

2. 2
   adjective

   Bent or curved away from a straight line.

   The carpenter replaced the bowed plank before it cracked.

   After the storm, the fence posts stood bowed and leaning.

   Similarbent, curved, warped, arched

   Oppositestraight

   Note

   Trades have kept this sense busy. In framing, a bowed stud is lumber that has warped along its length and must be replaced or cut and forced straight. In horse care, a bowed tendon is one of the most serious leg problems a racehorse can have. Degree comes from an adverb, as in badly bowed, and the word suits rigid things that ought to be straight.

3. 3
   adjectivein compounds

   Equipped with a bow as a weapon; used at the end of compounds that describe the bow, as in silver-bowed or weak-bowed.

   Strong-bowed archers can reach the far targets that beginners with lighter gear cannot.

   The museum's vase shows silver-bowed Artemis drawing an arrow beside her brother.

   Note

   Almost always the second half of a compound: silver-bowed, bright-bowed, weak-bowed, bent-bowed. The first element describes the bow, and the whole compound describes the archer who carries it. Translations of Greek and Latin poetry favor it for gods' epithets, such as the silver-bowed archer Apollo of the Homeric Hymns, while archery writing uses weak-bowed for gear. Standing alone, bowed reads as the "bent" meaning.

4. 4
   adjective

   Of a stringed instrument, having a bow used to play it.

   The orchestra's bowed instruments include violins and cellos.

   Most folk traditions feature at least one bowed string instrument.

   Oppositeplucked

   Note

   A classifying word, placed before a noun to sort instruments by how they are sounded: bowed instruments as against plucked ones. It does not grade, so nothing is more bowed than another. Ian Woodfield's The Early History of the Viol (1988) shows its reach, calling the viol in essence a bowed guitar. Applied to the string or the sound rather than the instrument, it shifts to the "played with a bow" meaning.

5. 5
   adjective

   Of a note or passage, produced by drawing a bow across the strings rather than plucking them.

   The cellist gave the bowed phrase a warm, singing tone.

   The opening stays bowed before the players switch to plucking.

   Oppositeplucked

   Note

   Physicists made a stock phrase of it: the bowed string. C. V. Raman wrote on its vibrations in 1918, and Fletcher and Rossing's The Physics of Musical Instruments (2012) notes how long it has interested the field. Its motion is peculiar and not simple harmonic. Here the word describes the string as it is being played, so it pairs with string, note or tone rather than with an instrument's name.

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