Also 7 loor, lour, lowre. [f. LOWER a.]
1. trans. To cause or allow to descend, to let down gradually (e.g., a boat, a drawbridge, a thing or person suspended from above); to haul down (a sail, a flag). Also with away (Naut.), down.
1659. D. Pell, Impr. Sea, 611. Being almost at my desired Port, I will strike and lower down my Fore-top-sail.
1669. Sturmy, Mariner’s Mag., I. 17. Loure the Yard, and furl the Sail.
1695. Woodward, Nat. Hist. Earth, iv. 198. The Water … sustains these Particles … till … its motion begins to remit,… when by degrees it lowers them.
1762–9. Falconer, Shipwr., II. 384. Now down the mast the yard they lower away.
1795. Southey, Joan of Arc, VII. 548. The foe advance to meet us … look! they lower The bridge!
1821. Scott, Pirate, xxxvi. The sloop immediately lowered a boat.
1874. Green, Short Hist., viii. § 9. 562. A summons from Blake to lower the Dutch flag was met by the Dutch admiral … with a broadside.
1894. Weyman, My Lady Rotha, xiv. 151. My lady … waved adieu to him, and he lowered his great plumed hat to his stirrup.
1895. Manch. Guard., 14 Oct., 5/6. The workmen have to be lowered by ropes down the face of the cliff.
b. absol. (Naut.)
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1780), Lower handsomely! and lower cheerly! are opposed to each other, the former being the order to lower gradually, and the latter to lower expeditiously.
1842. Barham, Ingol. Leg., Ser. II. Smuggler’s Leap. Now lower away, come lower away! We must be far ere the dawn of the day.
1898. F. T. Bullen, Cruise ‘Cachalot,’ iii. (1900), 21. We lowered and left the ship.
c. trans. To make lower, diminish the height of.
1858. Lardner, Hand-bk. Nat. Phil., Hydrostatics, etc. 33. The water escapes … until the level of C has been lowered to that of B.
1870. F. R. Wilson, Ch. Lindisf., 103. The bellcot … had been lowered to the porch.
d. Wood-engraving. To remove by cutting or scraping, or to depress (the surface of a block).
1839. Chatto, Wood Engraving, ix. (1861), 586. The part which appears white in A [should be] lowered out.
1849. Chambers’s Inform., II. 723/1. If lowered, the designs will require to be re-sketched on the wood.
2. intr. To descend, sink (also fig.); † to cower, crouch (obs.). Often with down. Also Naut. of a yard: To admit of being let down.
1606. Shaks., Ant. & Cl., I. ii. 129. The present pleasure, By reuolution lowring, does become The opposite of it selfe.
1680. Hickeringill, Meroz, Wks. 1716, I. 240. For the Crown to Veil and Lower to the Stool of Repentance, Oh abominable and Vile!
1720. T. Gordon, Humourist, I. 92. The brute Part of the Creation are affected by the Turns of Weather; the Deer, we say, runs to Covert, the Bird lowers.
1727. Philip Quarll (1816), 38. The main yard could not lower.
1799. J. Robertson, Agric. Perth, 323. When snow is falling … the shepherds drive their flocks … round the top of a hill in a circle, to keep them from lowring and being smothered.
1806. H. Siddons, Maid, Wife, & Widow, I. 146. I immediately lowered down and hid myself among some shrubs.
1852. Dickens, Bleak Ho., i. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots.
b. To slope downwards.
1813. Southey, Nelson, II. 104. To the north of Helsinburg the shores are steep and rocky; they lower to the south.
1875. Lyell, Princ. Geol., I. II. xxv. 638. The top of the escarpment where it lowers towards Ottajano.
† c. trans. To descend (a hill). Obs.
1780. A. Young, Tour Irel., I. 133. Lowering the hill the scenery is yet more agreeable.
3. a. trans. To diminish in amount, price, proportion, etc. b. intr. To become lower in price.
a. 1690. Child, Disc. Trade, Pref. (A) 7 b. Some people … may … not know it is for their Advantage to lower their Interest.
1729. Swift, Intelligencer, No. 19, ¶ 5. The Value of Guineas was lowered in England from 21s. 6d. to only 21s.
1765. Blackstone, Comm., I. 172. The value of money is very considerably lowered since the bishop wrote.
1823. Byron, Age of Bronze, xiv. Did the tyrant … lower wheat?
1833. Ht. Martineau, Manch. Strike, i. 3. I suppose your wages are lowered.
1886. Earl Spencer, Speech at Leeds, 3 May. They lowered the rents.
b. 1697. First Cent. Hist. Springfield (1899), II. 347. Soe soon as that grain vizt Indian Corne lowers of the abovesaid price … then [etc.].
1823. Examiner, 448/2. Meat will lower in price.
1891. Daily News, 13 June, 5/5. Poultry is gradually lowering in price.
4. To make lower in quality or degree; to lessen the intensity or elevation of.
1780. Mad. D’Arblay, Diary, 6 Dec. My illness … alone never yet lowered my spirits as they are now lowered.
1818. Jas. Mill, Brit. India, II. V. vii. 623. The Mahratta government … might have been induced to lower its tone.
1834. Lister, Anne Grey, xxvi. II. 115. Lowering his voice so that she alone could hear.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. vi. 46. The light of both is lowered in the same proportion.
1887. Ruskin, Præterita, II. 193. In washing, the Chiaroscuro is lowered from the high lights … to the middle tones.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VII. 629. Another time-honoured fashion of lowering intracranial tension is by purgatives.
† b. To reduce the strength or quality of (a liquid, the air); to dilute with (water, etc.). Obs.
1731. P. Shaw, Three Ess. Artif. Philos., 145. This Art of purifying Arracs with Milk, were tolerable, if they did not, at the same time, lower them with Water also.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Lowering a sample [of spirits] to the proof strength.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl., 8 June. Milk … lowered with hot water.
1793. Beddoes, Lett. Darwin, 39. It would be more advantageous to lower the atmospheric air with hydrogene than with azotic air.
1809. Malkin, Gil Blas, II. i. ¶ 5. [She made] him take a good draught of wine, a little lowered at proper intervals.
1844. Dickens, Mart. Chuz., ix. Wot do you go a lowerin’ the table-beer for then?
c. Mus. To depress in pitch, to flatten.
1889. E. Prout, Harmony (ed. 10), xvii. § 448. If we take the second inversion of a chord of the seventh … and lower the bass note a chromatic semitone, we shall obtain a new combination.
d. intr. To become lower in intensity.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., vii. The lurid light, which had filled the apartment, lowered and died away.
5. trans. To bring down in rank, station or estimation; to degrade, dishonor. Const. to.
1771. Junius Lett., liv. 282. His letter has lowered him in my opinion.
1774. J. Bryant, Mythol., II. 65. The history of Persius had been greatly misapplied and lowered, by being inserted among the fables of Greece.
1827. Lytton, Pelham, iv. In marriage a man lowers a woman to his own rank.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., vi. II. 75. What had passed must have had the effect of raising his own Church in his esteem, and of lowering the Church of England.
1859. Tennyson, Enid, 347. Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud.
1882. Jean Watson, Life A. Thomson, iii. 44. Lowering his character as a minister of the Gospel.
b. intr. for refl.
1842. Tennyson, Locksley Hall, 45. Thou shalt lower to his level day by day.
6. trans. To bring down to a lower position on a graduated scale.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., II. xxi. 344. To lower the melting point of the Montanvert ice.
1871. B. Stewart, Heat, § 98. It is possible to lower the freezing point by various means.
