unbow

English

Etymology

From un- +‎ bow.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ʌnˈbəʊ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ʌnˈboʊ/
• Rhymes: -əʊ
• Hyphenation: un‧bow

Verb

unbow (third-person singular simple present unbows, present participle unbowing, simple past and past participle unbowed)

1. (transitive) To unbend (something).
   • 1639, Thomas Fuller, “Richard of England and Philip of France Set Forward to the Holy Land; the Danger of the Interveiws of Princes”, in The Historie of the Holy Warre, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Thomas Buck, one of the printers to the Universitie of Cambridge [and sold by John Williams, London], →OCLC, book III, page 118:

     Richard [I of England] was well ſtored with men, the bones; and quickly got money, the ſinews of warre; by a thouſand Princely skills gathering ſo much coin as if he meant not to return, becauſe looking back would unbowe his reſolution

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “unbow”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)