[Named from Bow near Stratford in Essex, where dyers particularly carried on their works in the 17th c. (Bow took its name from the single-arched bridge built there across the Lea in the reign of Henry I., to replace the ford of the old Roman Road which gave name to Stratford, and Old Ford; cf. BOW sb.1 3.)]
A scarlet dye; also attrib. or as adj. Hence Bow-dye v., to dye scarlet; Bow-dyed ppl. a.; Bow-dyer.
a. 1659. Cleveland, Obsequies, 9. Or can his Bloud Bow-die th’ Egyptian Sand.
1676. Teonge, Diary (1825), 151. Flemingoes flye all about … they are blew and bow-dye.
1688. Lond. Gaz., No. 2346/4. 3 pieces of Bow-dy’d Serges.
1691. T. H[ale], Acc. New Invent., 51. The Invention of the Scarlet or Bow-dye.
1703. Art’s Improv., 13. As to the fading of the Bow-Die, and the Water-colours.
1745. De Foe, Eng. Tradesm., iv. (1841), I. 25. He goes in partner with C. D., a scarlet-dyer, called a bow-dyer, at Wandsworth.
