ppl. a. [f. EMBOW v.1]
1. Bent or curved into the form of a bow; convex, bow-like.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, VI. xxxix. 707. Long lyke a Peare, with certayne embowed or swelling diuisions.
1591. Spenser, Vis. Worlds Vanitie, ii. With gilden hornes embowed like the Moone.
1639. Horn & Robotham, Gate Lang. Unl., xciv. (1643), § 759. A globe is round, being embowed on the out-side, and hollow on the in-side.
1697. Potter, Antiq. Greece, III. vi. (1715), 61. The Wings are doubled, by bestowing the light-arm’d Men under them in an embow’d Form.
1855–9. Singleton, Virgil, II. 473. Th’ imbowèd points together met.
b. Her. (See quots.)
1610. Guillim, Heraldry, III. xxii. (1660), 234. He beareth, Azure, a Dolphin Nasant, Imbowed Argent.
1761. Brit. Mag., II. 532. Two arms counter, embowed, and vested, gules.
1830. Robson, Brit. Herald, Glossary, Embowed (Fr. courbé) bent, or bowed. Embowed contrary, bowed in opposite directions. Embowed dejected, bowed with the extremity turned downwards.
1864. Boutell, Heraldry Hist. & Pop., x. 56. An Arm … when bent at the elbow is embowed.
2. Arch. a. Arched, vaulted. b. Curved or projecting outward, so as to form a recess (cf. BOW sb.1 12, BOW-WINDOW).
1481. Caxton, Orat. P. C. Scipion, D. viii. in Tulle on Friendsh. The stone werkes enbowed called the Arches tryumphal.
1580. North, Plutarch (1676), 36. The fair embowed or vawted roofs.
1617. Sir R. Boyle, Diary (1886), I. 169. I agreed with the carpentere to putt a new compaste imbowed Roof on my Chapple.
1632. Milton, Penseroso, 157. Love the high embowéd roof.
1823. Rutter, Fonthill, 50. In the embowed recess are three windows.
1826. Scott, Woodst., i. The ancient embow’d arches of the old chantry.
1864. D. G. Mitchell, Seven Stories, 205. An embowed window.
