cower
Americanverb (used without object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
cowersimple
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cowerssimple
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have coweredperfect
-
has coweredperfect
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am coweringprogressive
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are coweringprogressive
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is coweringprogressive
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have been coweringperfect progressive
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has been coweringperfect progressive
Past
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coweredsimple
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had coweredperfect
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was coweringprogressive
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were coweringprogressive
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had been coweringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of cower
1250–1300; Middle English couren; cognate with Norwegian, Swedish kūra, Middle Low German kūren, German kauern
Explanation
To cower is to shrink in fear. Whether they live in the country or city, any mouse will cower when a huge, hungry cat approaches. When you cower, you're not just afraid. You're so terrified that your whole body cringes, crouches, and shrinks in on itself to hide from the source of your fear. Victims of a school bully might cower whenever he comes near, and a law-breaking peasant might cower when brought before a cruel king. Although a coward might cower in fear, the two words aren't related.
Vocabulary lists containing cower
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Of Mice and Men
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"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
After 36 hours in our care, Bob still had not peed, pooped, eaten, or done much of anything beyond cower.
From Slate ● Sep. 4, 2025
“This is a story of happiness,” Gibson insists at one point, refusing to cower to cancer.
From Salon ● Feb. 3, 2025
It could cower any woman, but Case hardened and bristled into a take-no-crap, determined, independent force of nature.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 22, 2025
Ten 6-week-old piglets cower together in the corner of a gated pen spread with straw.
From Science Magazine ● Dec. 7, 2023
Thalia already had Aegis on her arm, and even our own teammates were giving her a wide berth, trying not to cower before the bronze head of Medusa.
From "The Titan's Curse" by Rick Riordan
"He doesn't want to go for a walk when he has a muzzle on, he shivers and cowers down, it's horrible to see, but once he's up here he's like a new puppy again."
From BBC ● Feb. 1, 2024
She cowers in tiny, dark places at every bang.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 22, 2023
The official synopsis from Fox reads: Bart accidentally sees a brand-new superhero movie a month before it comes out… and the world cowers before his newfound plot-spoiling powers.
From The Verge ● Feb. 26, 2020
At the last moment, the father grabs his cell phone and runs away, while the mother sort of cowers with her two kids.
From Salon ● Feb. 14, 2020
She cowers to my largeness, taking two steps back.
From "Like Vanessa" by Tami Charles
“Others might have cowered or taken time to regroup and figure out what they should do,” said Wald.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 30, 2026
In the second car, Danielle Boyles, 27, a preschool teacher from South Africa, cowered under an abaya.
From New York Times ● May 5, 2023
Combine the timid showing with their 2022 elimination game against Houston, in which the Wildcats cowered from a rock fight, it’s clear that coach Tommy Lloyd must rethink his approach to roster construction.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 20, 2023
He briefly cowered, before realizing it was a taped-up black cricket ball that soared up from the ground floor.
From Salon ● Dec. 15, 2022
Unable to step outside, the conquistadors cowered in shelters beneath a relentless, weeks-long barrage of flaming stone.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
The distance between Americans and the people in other countries cowering as death rains down on them from the sky has always been vast both geographically and culturally.
From Salon ● Mar. 20, 2026
For Ms. Sweeney and Ms. Seyfried it provides an endless variety of opportunities to run through the soap-opera playbook of screaming, cowering, deceiving and attacking depending on the circumstances, which grow increasingly horrifying.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 18, 2025
On Friday, Musk shared two side-by-side A.I.-generated images of graffiti-style stencils: a smiling, handsome Kirk, and a cowering, dying Zarutska.
From Slate ● Sep. 12, 2025
The Grimsby result is one thing, but the sight of Amorim cowering in the dugout during the penalty shootout - it's difficult to imagine someone like Sir Alex Ferguson doing that.
From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2025
The baboon would spend the night cowering in a tree.
From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
