shower
Pluralshowers
Verbshowers, showering, showered
Pluralshowers
Formsshowers, showering, showered
- 1A device that sprays water down over a person for washing, or the cubicle that holds it.
The plumber replaced the shower with a walk-in unit.
Campers queue for the one working shower every morning.
Note
The bathroom fitting borrows its name from the weather: water falls on the body as rain falls from a cloud, and the fuller name shower bath says so outright.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- The bathing sense derives by analogy from a rain shower; the historical description supports this semantic inference. gutenberg.org
- Shower bath is a fuller name for the bathing device. en.wiktionary.org
- 2An instance of bathing under a shower.
A cold shower after the run left her wide awake.
Two showers a day in that heat seemed reasonable.
UsageHave a shower and take a shower both work, and the verb shower means the same.
- 3A brief fall of rain, or a similar fall of snow, sleet, or hail.
The players left the field during a brief shower and returned once the rain had passed.
The sun lit the farm for a moment before an advancing shower overwhelmed it.
UsageOften plural in forecasts: sunny spells and showers, scattered showers.
Note
The weather sense is the root of almost every other meaning here. Brevity is built in, which is why forecasts set showers against sunny spells, and the plural suggests rain that comes and goes. The King James Bible of 1611 already has people "wet with the showres of the mountaines."
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- The weather sense underlies the other principal meanings of shower. en.wiktionary.org
- The King James Bible was first published in 1611. neh.gov
- The quoted wording occurs in the 1611 King James Bible, Job 24:8, describing people. kingjamesbibleonline.org
- 4
- 5A party held to celebrate an important event in someone's life, especially a coming marriage or the birth of a baby, at which guests give presents.
Her friends threw her a baby shower a month before the due date.
The bridal shower was held in her aunt's garden, with games and a big cake.
UsageA word before shower identifies the occasion: baby shower, bridal shower. You throw someone a shower.
Similarparty, celebration
Note
The bridal shower and the baby shower are the best-known kinds, but the general word is wider than either: any significant event can be the occasion, and what stays constant is the shape; a guest of honor and the gifts brought for them.
- 6A quantity of something that falls or arrives like a rain shower.
Showers of red sparks rose into the night sky as he poked at the campfire.
The coach got the traditional shower of sports drink after the win.
UsageUsually a shower of plus what falls: a shower of sparks. Also in compounds such as meteor shower.
Similarspray, cascade, hail, volley, deluge
Note
Arthur F. Beckenham's "A Journey in the Belgian Congo" (1958) describes showers of red sparks thrown skyward as a fireman rocked his fire. It also forms compounds in which the falling thing comes first. Meteor shower is the best known, and the sports ritual of the Gatorade shower follows the same pattern.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Arthur F. Beckenham's “A Journey in the Belgian Congo” was published in 1958 and describes showers of red sparks ejected skywards as a fireman rocked his fire. en.wiktionary.org
- The Gatorade shower is a sports ritual. en.wikipedia.org
- 7To give or hand out something lavishly and in great quantities.
Relatives showered the newborn with gifts and attention during their first visit.
Critics tend to shower praise on any film she directs.
UsageShower someone with gifts, or shower gifts on someone.
Similarlavish, heap, bestow, inundate, deluge
Note
The verb of generosity takes two frames, and both are idiomatic. When the receiver is the object, use with, as in James Taylor's "Shower the People": "Shower the people you love with love." When the gifts are the object, use on or upon, as in Boris Sidis's 1919 line about honors that "are showered on him."
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- James Taylor wrote “Shower the People.” jamestaylor.com
- The song includes the exact words “Shower the people you love with love.” en.wiktionary.org
- Boris Sidis's passage dates to the 1919 publication of The Source and Aim of Human Progress. sidis.net
- Sidis wrote about honors using the exact words “are showered on him.” sidis.net
Less common meanings
- 8To fall, or make something fall, in many drops or small pieces like a shower of rain; to cover someone or something with liquid or small objects in this way (often 'shower someone with something').
Confetti showered onto the crowd from the upper balconies.
Ash will shower over the town for days after the eruption.
UsageOften with down, onto or over: confetti showered onto the crowd.
- 9A group of people regarded as useless, incompetent, or contemptible; often in phrases such as 'a shower of wasters' or the vulgar 'shower of shit'.
Most replies asked what anyone could expect from this shower.
The board that approved the plan was a shower, in the columnist's view.
UsageOften this shower or that shower: what do you expect from this shower?
Note
Christian Wolmar, writing on rail policy in 2023, quotes readers asking "what do you expect from this shower?" It carries the contempt of the vulgar phrase shower of shit without the vulgar word, which is why it can appear in print.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Christian Wolmar used this example in rail commentary published in 2023. en.wiktionary.org
- The quoted wording represents responses Wolmar received; he introduces it as what those responses were 'along the lines of'. en.wiktionary.org
- 10USSHOH-ur/ˈʃoʊ.ɚ/UKSHOH-uh/ˈʃəʊ.ə(ɹ)/A man whose flaccid penis is nearly its erect size, or such a penis.
A urologist on the podcast said being a shower rather than a grower predicts nothing about erect size.
Some men are showers, whose size hardly changes, and others growers.
Oppositegrower
Note
The slang term is almost always heard against its opposite, grower. The stock phrase is "a grower, not a shower," and the rhyme does much of the work. Some writers spell it show-er, which keeps the show-plus-er formation visible and the bathroom fitting out of mind.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Grower is the opposite of shower in this slang sense. en.wiktionary.org
- The phrase a grower, not a shower is attested. groups.google.com
- The hyphenated spelling show-er is attested in this sexual sense. groups.google.com
- 11A battle or attack; armed conflict.
Note
Medieval romance is where this military meaning lives, and Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur (1485) uses it. In older texts a shower can be a fight or an assault rather than rain, and the talk of arms around it usually shows which is meant.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- The military meaning occurs in medieval romance, including Malory's work. gutenberg.org
- Sir Thomas Malory wrote Le Morte Darthur. en.wikipedia.org
- Le Morte Darthur was first published in 1485. searcharchives.bl.uk
- In older English, shower could mean an assault or battle. en.wiktionary.org
- 12In juggling, a pattern in which objects pass horizontally from one hand to the other at chest height and back over the head to the first hand.
- 13An object or activity shown in a contest, such as an animal entered at a fair.
- 14One who shows something.
Once the showee looks at the object, the shower removes his or her gaze from the showee and gazes back at the object (see below and Fig. 5.2).
2018, Elisabeth Reber, Cornelia Gerhardt
Showing meanings only.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of shower apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origins
Old English sċūr became Middle English schour. It goes back through Proto-West Germanic *skūru and Proto-Germanic *skūrō, and possibly to a Proto-Indo-European root *(s)ḱēwer-, meaning north wind, cold wind or rain shower. Dutch schoer, German Schauer and Old Norse skúr are related.
From Middle English showre, from Old English sċēawere ("an observer, one who examines a matter; a spy; a mirror; an actor"), equivalent to show + -er. It is related to Dutch schouwer ("observer, visionary") and German Schauer ("an inspector").
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- The agent noun comes through Middle English showre, a variant of schewere, from Old English sċēawere. en.wiktionary.org
- Old English sċēawere meant an observer or examiner, a spy, a mirror, or an actor. en.wiktionary.org
- The word is equivalent to show + -er. en.wiktionary.org
- It is cognate with Dutch schouwer, meaning observer or visionary, and German Schauer, meaning inspector. en.wiktionary.org