entry
towered
/ˈtaʊərd/Rose high; or equipped with a tower
From Latin, via Old English, Middle English, and Old French tower (tower).
Word Ancestry
Picture a medieval watchman standing on a stone platform, scanning the horizon from a torr or tūr. English inherited that Old English word, while Middle English speakers also encountered the French-looking tour, ultimately connected with Latin turris, “tower.” The spelling took an unexpected turn: around 1400, English began writing tower with a -w-, even though nobody pronounced a separate w sound. By the mid-fourteenth century, the noun had climbed metaphorically from masonry to any lofty mass, and later became a verb: a person, building, or skyscraper could tower above something else. The same family includes tor, a rocky hill or crag, and turret, a little tower—so a towered castle and a tower-like outcrop are linguistic relatives. Today, “towered” can also mean “got extremely drunk or stoned” in slang, while Minecraft players may use it for building a one-block-wide tower to escape a hole; the old image remains the same: something rising dramatically upward.
The Story
Picture a medieval watchman standing on a stone platform, scanning the horizon from a torr or tūr. English inherited that Old English word, while Middle English speakers also encountered the French-looking tour, ultimately connected with Latin turris, “tower.” The spelling took an unexpected turn: around 1400, English began writing tower with a -w-, even though nobody pronounced a separate w sound. By the mid-fourteenth century, the noun had climbed metaphorically from masonry to any lofty mass, and later became a verb: a person, building, or skyscraper could tower above something else. The same family includes tor, a rocky hill or crag, and turret, a little tower—so a towered castle and a tower-like outcrop are linguistic relatives. Today, “towered” can also mean “got extremely drunk or stoned” in slang, while Minecraft players may use it for building a one-block-wide tower to escape a hole; the old image remains the same: something rising dramatically upward.
Modern Usage
Extremely drunk, stoned, or both; also Minecraft slang for building a narrow tower upward.
Notable References
- Urban Dictionary entries for intoxication and Minecraft usage
Kin & Kindred
From 'tower'·tower, citadel, high structure
Derived Terms
English words from this root
Sources
Etymonline
Urban Dictionary
Wiktionary