What does bowstrung mean?
Bowstrung is the past tense of the verb bowstring, meaning to strangle someone by drawing a bowstring tightly around the neck. The term carries strong historical associations: in the Ottoman Empire, members of the imperial family condemned to death were customarily bowstrung rather than beheaded, since spilling royal blood was forbidden and a silken cord left no visible wound. This practice gave the word its grim, evocative force, and it appears frequently in histories and novels set in the Ottoman world. By extension, writers occasionally use bowstrung figuratively to describe something throttled or suppressed, such as a silenced press or a stifled movement. The word is rare and literary today, valued for its precision and historical resonance rather than everyday utility. Its regularized variant, bowstringed, also exists, though the irregular form remains the traditional choice.
verbPast tense of bowstring: to strangle or execute someone by tightening a bowstring around the throat. Also used figuratively to mean throttled or suppressed.
- To have strangled someone with a bowstring (past tense of bowstring), historically an execution method.
- Figuratively, to have suppressed or throttled something.
"In Ottoman times, princes of the royal house who threatened the succession were quietly bowstrung in the palace."
"According to court chronicles, the vizier ordered the rebel pasha bowstrung at midnight."
"The new censorship laws effectively bowstrung the independent press."
The word 'bowstrung' preserves one of history's coldest euphemisms — Ottoman sultans eliminated rival brothers not with blades, but with a silk cord drawn tight, so that royal blood was never spilled.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of bowstrung
Bowstrung derives from the compound noun bowstring, formed in Middle English from bow plus string, referring to the cord of an archer's bow. The verb bowstring arose from this noun, describing strangulation by that cord, a method associated especially with Turkish and Ottoman executions from around the early modern period onward. It follows the irregular strong-verb pattern of string → strung, giving the past tense bowstrung alongside the later regular form bowstringed.
Related word forms
Easily confused with bowstrung
Both are past-tense forms of bowstring, but 'bowstrung' is the older, irregular form while 'bowstringed' is a later regularized variant; neither is a different word.