wooer
(ˈwuːə(r))
Forms: 1 woᵹere, 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– wooer.
[OE. wóᵹere, f. woo v.1 + -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 woᵹerum drencas..þæt hi hi to wife habbon. c 1025–50 Rule of Chrodegang lii. (1916) 64 Þonne wite þu þæt hi beoð woᵹeras 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{supt} [etc.]. 1889 Science-Gossip XXV. 236 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. |