Other forms: cowering, cowers, cowered
To cower is to crouch down in fear. Cower in the corner, cowering dog, cowered under the table.
The crouch is the point — cowering is making yourself small, which is what frightened animals and people do without deciding to. It is pitiable rather than contemptible, unlike its near neighbour grovel. Note that it is unrelated to coward, which comes from a French word for a tail.
1verbcowerTo crouch down in fear.
“The frightened dog cowered under the table all through the thunderstorm.”
cower is a crouching in fear.
Middle English couren probably comes from a Low German or Norse word meaning to crouch or lie in wait. Coward is unrelated.
Proto-Indo-European
*gew- — to curve, bend
Middle Low German
kûren — to lie in wait; linger
Middle English
couren
English, today
cower
From Middle English couren, cowre, from Middle Low German kûren (“to lie in wait; linger”) or from gmq - (Icelandic kúra (“to doze”)); according to Pokorny, all are ultimately from Proto-Indo-European gew- (“to curve, bend”), see also Proto-Germanic kuddô (“shell, pod”). Cognate with German kauern (“to squat”), Dutch koeren (“to keep watch (in a cowered position)”), Serbo-Croatian kutriti (“to lie in a bent position”), Swedish kura (“huddle, cower”). Unrelated to coward, which is of Latin origin.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Sharper Verbs