down-bown.
/ˈdaʊnbəʊ/, U.S. /ˈdaʊnˌboʊ/ Music.
A stroke made by drawing the bow from heel to tip across one or more of the strings of a bowed stringed instrument.
ΚΠ
1722 T. B. Compl. Musick-master (ed. 3) iii. 42 If the first Note in the Barr has a Prick..it will be best to play it with a down Bow.
1837 Tait's Edinb. Mag. Feb. 95b His mark for an up-bow consists of a vertical line drawn from the interior of a semicircle placed beneath it. His mark for a down bow is the same figure reversed.
1883 Gentleman's Mag. July 54 He passed from the up to the down bow in those long cantabile notes.
1915 J. Dunn Violin Playing (ed. 3) viii. 50 The third example can also be taken at the heel, commencing down bow, when the bow will be raised for the accented notes as at the point.
1997 Independent 27 Mar. ii. 10/4 The down-bow clonks the E flat baritone cow-bell, while the up-bow has an exciting rendezvous with a bass player's right nostril.
2000 Guardian 16 Nov. i. 26/2 He injected a dynamic drive into every tune he played, achieving much of his attack by the use of very strong up-bows at points where most fiddlers would use a down-bow.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2018; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
<
n.1722