prow

• IPA^(key): /pɹaʊ/
• Rhymes: -aʊ

From Middle French proue, from Genoese Italian prua, proa, from Latin prōra, from Ancient Greek πρῷρα (prôira).

prow (plural prows)

1. (nautical) The front part of a vessel

   Synonyms: beak, bow, forestem, prore, stem

   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost

     The floating vessel swum / Uplifted, and secure with beaked prow / rode tilting o'er the waves.

   • 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot Chapter IV

     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.

2. A vessel

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

prow (comparative prower, superlative prowest)

1. (archaic) Brave, valiant, gallant. [1]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. […], London: Printed [by John Wolfe] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938, book II, canto III:

     For they be two the prowest knights on ground, / And oft approu’d in many hard assay […]

• prowess

prow (plural prows)

1. Alternative form of proa

• pow'r