prow

noun, adj — 3 senses

prow

noun

UK, US /pɹaʊ/ · /pɹoʊ/

Etymology From Middle French proue, proe, from Ligurian prua, proa, from Latin prōra, from Ancient Greek πρῷρα (prōîra).

1

Nautical, Transport The front part of a vessel.

  • The floating vessel swum / Uplifted, and secure with beaked prow / rode tilting o'er the waves.1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost:
  • We were already rather close in; but I ordered the U-33's prow turned inshore and we crept slowly along, constantly dipping up the water and tasting it to assure ourselves that we didn't get outside the fresh-water current.1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter IV, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:
2

A vessel.

Derived terms
prowed, prowfish, prowlike

prow

adj

Etymology From Middle English prow, from Old French prou, from Late Latin prode; more at proud.

1

Archaic Brave, valiant, gallant.

  • For they be two the prowest knights on ground, / And oft approu’d in many hard assay […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
Related terms
prowess

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.