(v. i.) To stoop by bending the knees; to crouch; to squat; hence, to quail; to sink through fear.
(v. t.) To cherish with care.
Example Sentences:
(1) Stephen Fisher, one of the archaeologists recording the site, says digging the trenches would also have been training for the men, who would soon have to do it for real, and the little slit trenches scattered across the site, just big enough for one man to cower in, might represent their first efforts.
(2) In the cities worst hit by street fighting, such as Aden, civilians are either cowering at home to avoid sniper fire and bombardment or have joined the more than half million Yemenis forced out of their houses and now looking for food and shelter.
(3) Reporters were initially told that one of Bin Laden's wives was killed while he was using her as a human shield, prompting headlines such as "Osama bin Laden killed cowering behind his 'human shield' wife ".
(4) The trial on Friday heard from defence ballistics expert Tom Wolmarans who testified that it was impossible to be certain how Steenkamp fell when she was hit by bullets, challenging the prosecution's implication that she might have been cowering in fear.
(5) The special constable found his driver, cowered behind her shield and watched a brick fly through the air, strike the ground and split in two.
(6) Infantile delivery also frequently serves to take the curse off self-publicity; sleight of hand for those who find "my programme is on BBC2 tonight" too presumptuous and exposing, and prefer to cower behind the low-status imbecility of "I done rote a fingy for da tellybox!"
(7) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ed Miliband challenges David Cameron to name a date for a TV debate The Labour leader renewed his call to Cameron to face him in the one-on-one debate proposed by broadcasters on 30 April, saying that the prime minister was “cowering from the public”.
(8) The chilling claim that we are all surrounded by an invisible peril was the prelude to evoking an evil that we had long thought was behind us, with May declaring: "It is walking our streets, supplying shops and supermarkets, working in fields, factories or nail bars, trapped in brothels or cowering behind the curtains in an ordinary street: slavery."
(9) The Labour party have been hiding in the shadows and cowering in fear.
(10) The Prison Service launched an investigation after footage filmed in Forest Bank showed an inmate, who appeared to be hallucinating because of the effect of drugs, writhing on a bed in his cell and cowering in fear at the sight of an apple.
(11) Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian I don't drink as a rule, but one proud little abode cowering in the shadow of the monstrosity that is the Beetham Tower is a lovely little old Manchester boozer.
(12) Mangena said Steenkamp was shot in the right hip and was cowering when she was hit in the head.
(13) State radio went dead, and fearful residents cowered in their homes.
(14) He is cowering in the tradition of silence that he inherited,” said Jason Tompkins, an organizer with Black Lives Matter of Chicago.
(15) Furthermore, reading through his old interviews, it seems this is very much the new, improved, media-friendly Richard Ayoade: one journalist who encountered him just as the IT Crowd broke found him "cowering" behind his glasses and complaining that he was "terrible at talking, with words".
(16) Survivors fled into three eastern enclaves where the Bosnian republican army had resisted: Goražde, Žepa and Srebrenica, their populations swelled by displaced deportees, cowering, bombarded relentlessly and largely cut off from supplies of food and medicine.
(17) An age group from 30 to 78 years has been cowered with an average age of 59.
(18) The journey has caused the burger to steam into greyness, glueing itself to its soggy bun.The £32 steak appears, cowering in the corner of its container like a whipped puppy.
(19) Valentina, a 61-year-old market trader in Ilovaysk, said she had spent 23 days cowering in a cellar with several dozen others, and had been threatened by Ukrainian volunteer battalions who tried to use her and others as human shields and stole mobile phones and other property.
(20) For the left upper limb, the site of amputation was at the level of the Cower third of the forearm.
Wince
Definition:
(v. i.) To shrink, as from a blow, or from pain; to flinch; to start back.
(v. i.) To kick or flounce when unsteady, or impatient at a rider; as, a horse winces.
(n.) The act of one who winces.
(n.) A reel used in dyeing, steeping, or washing cloth; a winch. It is placed over the division wall between two wince pits so as to allow the cloth to descend into either compartment. at will.
Example Sentences:
(1) Boris winced; his presence in the house is becoming ever more marginal and Osborne is now the clear favourite to become the next leader of the Tory party.
(2) We might as well put a white cat in his lap.” The photographer asks McCluskey to hold the king up to the camera, and the press officer laughs with a wince.
(3) Even as Germany winced its way through three years of crisis, bailouts and skyrocketing national debt, openly anti-euro sentiments have remained off-limits for all mainstream parties.
(4) Tory grandees visibly winced on television as the scale of the defeat sank in - and Basildon, symbol of their salvation among Essex voters in 1992, went Labour on a 15 per cent swing.
(5) "Any politician that claims to you that they're an ordinary person is not telling you the truth," Miliband mutters, half smiling and wincing.
(6) Candidate of the day Aforementioned Lindsay candidate Fiona Scott, who laughed a little too loudly at her leader’s comment as his daughter Frances, standing right beside her father, visibly winced.
(7) He cradles a black tea, wincing every time crockery crashes in the kitchen of the backstreet London cafe we're seated in.
(8) The pizza flew, the tackles made you wince and there was no love lost between Wenger and Ferguson.
(9) We slightly wince, on behalf of those more tightly bound to laborious necessity, when we read that "to maintain one's self on this earth is not hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely", and that "by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living".
(10) Yet well-meaning westerners – health experts, development workers, sustainability folk and so on – are wont to wince at the sight.
(11) One wince during this procedure could get you shunned from society.
(12) People tend to wince at the cost of having furniture reupholstered, but when you think about how long it should last (a well-upholstered chair should be good for 30 years) there's nothing throwaway about it.
(13) Neid, though, was becoming increasingly vexed by what she clearly perceived as some rough-house tactics from England, including some rather wince-inducing challenges.
(14) The balderdash quotient is high at all party conferences, but at a time like this people will wince more than ever at high-minded phrases from government ministers that disguise a very different reality.
(15) I must remind you of the seriousness of the assault and that you were arrested, not her.” Indeed, this assault was so serious that it left Ruffley’s ex-partner “wincing in obvious pain” when her friend Ward saw her afterwards.
(16) Ward, a friend of Ruffley's former partner, said the woman had "winced in obvious pain" when they hugged in greeting a few days after the incident and told of how frightened she had been of his "rage and violent behaviour".
(17) NEW WONKS Conservative Voice, a joint venture of disaffected Tory big beasts Liam Fox and David Davis, was launched with much fanfare and, no doubt, no small amount of wincing by Cameron last week.
(18) Grainger, courtesy of a hugely emotional win alongside Anna Watkins in the women's double sculls, now has a gold to add to her three previous wince-inducing silvers.
(19) He does it with a budget of £30m a year, but only £12m of that is spent on programming, he says (still enough to make commercial stations wince).
(20) Well” she begins, shifting her position and wincing, “I was playing with my son’s dinosaur, and it’s stuck.” “OK, Mrs T, but why are you in the sexual health clinic today?” I continue, somewhat bemused.