Wooer

Forms: 1 woʓere, 3, 5 woware, 4–5 wowere (4 wouwere), 4–6 wower, 5–6 chiefly Sc. wowar, 5 woar, Sc. woweir, 6 Sc. wawar, 6–8 woer, 6– wooor. [OE. wóʓere, f. WOO v. + -ER¹.] One who woos a woman, esp. with a view to marriage, a suitor; rarely a woman who woos a man. Also in fig. context.

c. 1000.  Ælfric, Saints’ Lives, xvii. 157. Sume hi wyrcað heora woʓerum drencas … þæt hi hi to wife habbon.

c. 1025–50.  Rule of Chrodegang, lii. (1916), 64. Þonne wite þu þæt hi beoð woʓeras swiðor þonne preostas.

a. 1225.  Ancr. R., 90. Ich am woware scheomeful. Ich nulle nouware bicluppe mine leofmon bute ine stude derne.

1377.  Langl., P. Pl., B. XI. 71. Ȝe faren lyke þise woweres, Þat wedde none wydwes but forto welde here godis.

a. 1395.  Hylton, Scala Perf. (W. de W., 1494), II. xliv. That it myghte come to theffecte of true spousage he hathe suche gracyous spekynges this maner of a wower to a chosen soule.

1513.  Douglas, Æneis, IV. Prol. 196. Traist nocht all talis that wantoun woweris tellis.

1546.  J. Heywood, Prov. (1867), 73. He vnto hir a goodly tale began, More like a wooer, than a wedded man.

1635.  A. Stafford, Fem. Glory, 88. He compares God to a Woer, the Angell to a sollicitour, and Mary to the beloved.

1724.  Ramsay, Tea-t. Misc. (1733), I. 8. Now, Woer, quoth he, wou’d ye light down I’ll gie ye my doghter’s love to win.

1828.  Scott, F. M. Perth, v. She were fittest Valentine in Perth for so craven a wooer.

1854.  Dickens, Hard T., I. xvi. Mr. Bounderby went … to Stone Lodge as an accepted wooer.

1869.  Spurgeon, Treas. Dav., Ps. xviii. 44. ‘Love at first sight’ is no uncommon thing when Jesus is the wooer.

  b.  transf. of the lower animals.

1577.  Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., 126 b. If shee haue not been horsed before, she wil so beate her woer, y^t [etc.].

1889.  Science-Gossip, XXV. 236/1. It is not always the males [sc. butterflies] who are the wooers.

  c.  Comb.

1513.  Douglas, Æneis, XII. Prol. 300. To crowd In amorus voce and wowar soundis lowd.

1785.  Burns, Halloween, iii. The lads sae trig, wi’ wooer-babs.

1825.  Jamieson, Wooer-bab,… the garter knotted below the knee with a couple of loops, formerly worn by a young man who was too sheepish to announce in plain terms the purpose of his visit.