Lower

How to spell lower

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce lower

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does lower mean?

1. verbTo move something or someone to a lower position.
2. adjectiveSituated below something else, or further down in position or rank.

Lower in a sentence

• verb

  Please lower the blinds before the film starts.

• adjective

  The lower shelf holds the heavier pans.

• verb

  The crane will lower the steel container onto the deck.

• adjective

  Her office is on the lower floor of the building.

Where does lower come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

The everyday word comes from 'low', which English took from the Old Norse 'lagr', meaning 'low' or 'not high', a word Norse settlers brought to Britain that gradually replaced or sat alongside native forms. Adding the comparative ending '-er' gave 'lower', the form meaning 'further down' or 'beneath something else', and from that comparative the verb 'to lower', meaning 'to bring down', developed in the late 1500s. A quite separate word with the same modern spelling, the 'lower' that means to scowl or to look dark and threatening, comes instead from Middle English 'louren', related to Middle Low German and Dutch words for frowning; it is pronounced to rhyme with 'hour' rather than 'mower'. Because the common senses are so familiar and the spelling simply joins 'low' to '-er', the word holds few traps for an adult writer. The chief curiosity is that two unrelated words have converged on one spelling while keeping two different pronunciations.

How the word is built

• low (from Old Norse lagr: low, not high)
• -er (comparative and agentive suffix)