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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  

[bau-uh-ree] / ˈbaʊ ə ri /

adjective

1. containing bowers; leafy; shady.

   a bowery maze.

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bowery ² American  

[bau-uh-ree, bau-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

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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

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bowery Bowery boweries

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

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

The party took rooms on Prince’s Street, a thoroughfare one hundred feet wide and a mile in length, graced with noble monuments of art and bowery pleasure-grounds.

From Zigzag Journeys in Europe Vacation Rambles in Historic Lands by Hezekiah Butterworth

The journey from Caen, along the bowery Norman highways, was made in diligences.

From Zigzag Journeys in Europe Vacation Rambles in Historic Lands by Hezekiah Butterworth

At ten o'clock we assembled for meeting in the bowery.

From Life of Heber C. Kimball, an Apostle The Father and Founder of the British Mission by Orson F. Whitney

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

Later, Goode created New York’s Area nightclub/art gallery in the 1980s; took ownership roles in several hotels and restaurants, including New York’s Bowery Hotel; and co-founded the nonprofit Turtle Conservancy with Maurice Rodrigues.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2025

I got paid for the article I wrote about him for Bedford + Bowery, a site run in collaboration with New York Magazine.

From Salon ● Sep. 18, 2024

Then, after we’d collected about ten huge garbage bags full of coats, my mom and dad and I drove all the way downtown to the Bowery Mission to donate the coats.

From "Auggie & Me" by R. J. Palacio

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 William Alexander Linn

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 David Ives Bushnell

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 James H. McClintock

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