noun
- A weapon made of a curved piece of wood or other flexible material whose ends are connected by a string, used for shooting arrows.
- A curved bend in a rod or planar surface, or in a linear formation such as a river (see oxbow).
- A rod with horsehair (or an artificial substitute) stretched between the ends, used for playing various stringed musical instruments.
- A stringed instrument (chordophone), consisting of a stick with a single taut cord stretched between the ends, most often played by plucking.
- A type of knot with two loops, used to tie together two cords such as shoelaces or apron strings, and frequently used as decoration, such as in gift-wrapping.
- Anything bent or curved, such as a rainbow.
- The U-shaped piece which goes around the neck of an ox and fastens it to the yoke.
- Either of the arms of a pair of spectacles, running from the side of the lens to behind the wearer's ear.
- Any instrument consisting of an elastic rod, with ends connected by a string, employed for giving reciprocating motion to a drill, or for preparing and arranging hair, fur, etc., used by hatters.
- A crude sort of quadrant formerly used for taking the sun's altitude at sea.
- (saddlery) Two pieces of wood which form the arched forward part of a saddletree.
- The part of a key that is not inserted into the lock and that is used to turn the key.
Synonyms: musical bow, arc, bend, curve, fiddlestick
verb
- To play music on (a stringed) instrument using a bow.
- To become bent or curved.
- To make something bend or curve.
- To exercise powerful or controlling influence over; to bend, figuratively; to turn; to incline.
- To premiere.
Pronunciation
About this word
Bow is a 2-meaning word in English. Shorter words have fewer anagrams.
This page shows the definition of bow along with every other word you can make from its letters. Click the link above to see all anagrams and shorter words formed from the same set of letters.
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Words in word games
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Scrabble
In Scrabble, the valid word lists are the Official Tournament and Club Word List (OTCWL/NWL) for North America and the Collins Scrabble Words (CSW) for international play. Our dictionary covers most words in both lists, but some proper nouns, abbreviations, and offensive terms may differ.
Wordle
Wordle uses its own curated word list that is smaller than the full Scrabble dictionary. If Bow appears here, it may or may not be a valid Wordle answer — but it is a real English word regardless.
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