Definition of "bolster" []

• A long narrow pillow or cushion. (noun)
• To support or prop up with or as if with a long narrow pillow or cushion. (verb-transitive)
• To buoy up or hearten: Visitors bolstered the patient's morale. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Also, BBC America will bolster is Science Fiction and Fantasy offerings this Summer as it adds the supernatural Being Human and the post-apocalyptic Survivors to its schedule which already includes such genre imports as Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Primeval."
• "Rather than acting as simply a short-term bolster of the sugar industry, it became a full-fledged energy program."
• "The _Toolmaker, _ who, as a rule, both makes and sets the tools, has placed in what is known as a bolster a die, having a hole perforated through it of the exact shape of the blank to be cut; and attached to the bottom of the screwed bolt of the press is a punch, also bearing the exact shape of the blank."