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• bowery
  bowery

  adjective

  containing bowers; leafy; shady.
• Bowery
  Bowery

  noun

  a street in New York City noted for its cheap hotels and bars, frequented by vagrants and drunks

bowery

¹ American  

[bou-uh-ree] / ˈbaʊ ə ri /

adjective

1. containing bowers; leafy; shady.

   a bowery maze.

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bowery ² American  

[bou-uh-ree, bou-ree] / ˈbaʊ ə ri, ˈbaʊ ri /

noun

boweries plural

1. (among the Dutch settlers of New York) a farm or country seat.

2. the Bowery, a street and area in New York City, historically noted for its cheap hotels and saloons, and populated by people who were destitute and homeless.

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Bowery British  

/ ˈbaʊərɪ /

noun

1. a street in New York City noted for its cheap hotels and bars, frequented by vagrants and drunks

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Bowery Cultural  

1. A section of lower Manhattan in New York City.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• boweries
  plural

Etymology

Origin of bowery¹

First recorded in 1695–1705; bower ¹ + -y ¹

Origin of bowery²

An Americanism dating back to 1640–50; from Dutch bouwerij “farm,” equivalent to bouw “cultivation” + -erij -ery

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bowery Bowery boweries

I will likely continue buying classic-fit light hickory bowery pants until they stop making them, or until I never go to an office again.

From Forbes ● Jun. 15, 2015

For years it’s been the place where I have routinely purchased pairs of light hickory bowery pants in a classic fit.

From Forbes ● Jun. 15, 2015

Venus hath left her Grecian isles With all her charms and witching wiles And now all rustic hearts beguiles In bowery Westerham!

From Our Admirable Betty A Romance by Farnol, Jeffery

"Me rather, all that bowery loneliness, The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring, And bloom profuse, and cedar arches charm."

From The Taming of the Jungle by Doyle, Dr. C. W.

I don't mean this to be a diary—but it has been another splendid summer day—and I am wondering if you sit in the loose but warm embrace of bowery Cambridge.

From The Letters of Henry James, Vol. II by James, Henry

But that friend, performance artist Leigh Bowery, had posed for Freud and thought she’d make a great sitter because she was reliable and adventurous, she said, and made the introduction.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 24, 2026

"Our new 120,000-square-foot building on the Bowery signals our redoubled commitment to new art and new ideas, and to the museum as an ever-evolving site for risk-taking, collaboration and experimentation," she said.

From Barron's ● Mar. 18, 2026

Soon, they were playing shows at the Bowery Ballroom and then overseas in such places as Berlin and Guatemala.

From Salon ● Sep. 11, 2025

Hope and Crosby, Martin and Lewis, Abbott and Costello, the Bowery Boys, Cheech & Chong all went there, if not quite so covered in blood.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 5, 2025

Cannons boomed from the forts lining the shore while merchants, clerks, clergy, lawyers, and omnibus drivers from Wall Street to the Bowery celebrated.

From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock

The making of such "boweries" was continued by the Saints in Utah.

From The Story of the Mormons, from the date of their origin to the year 1901 by Linn, William Alexander

Some of the early settlers built boweries of brush under which they rolled their covered wagons, to secure better protection from the pitiless Arizona summer sun, and with no other home for weeks.

From Mormon Settlement in Arizona A Record of Peaceful Conquest of the Desert by McClintock, James H.

The boweries were more completely covered, and a greater proportion of bark was used in the construction of them.

From Villages of the Algonquian, Siouan, and Caddoan Tribes West of the Mississippi by Bushnell, David Ives