Home › Glossary › Letter L

Lowboy

Furnishings
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A low chest of drawers set on legs. It was commonly used as a dressing table in earlier periods.

Detailed Definition
A lowboy is a low, legged chest of drawers, often made in eighteenth-century styles and used for storing clothing, linens, or grooming articles. Its modest height and graceful proportions suit poems attentive to old rooms and inherited objects. A lowboy can hold gloves, combs, ribbons, or mourning jewelry, allowing a poet to evoke the rituals of dressing and the fragile artifacts through which a vanished person remains present.
Example
Example in poetry:
The lowboy held its brass handles like small moons at the edge of the room; A lowboy is a short chest of drawers, so it can place a poem in an eighteenth-century or traditionally furnished interior; “On the lowboy, a silver brush gathered the light of the dressing room”; A poet can use the low height of a lowboy to emphasize a child’s eye-level view of adult belongings
Additional Notes
A lowboy often appears in period interiors and dressing scenes. Its low height and drawers can suggest intimate routines, garments, and concealed valuables.
Also Known As
Dressing Table Low Chest of Drawers
Skip to main content