Definition of "bowsing" [bowsing]

• Present participle of bowse. (verb)

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• "Friars Cowle, which was so snottie and greazie, that good store of kitchin stuffe might have beene boiled out of it; as also a foule slovenly Trusse or halfe doublet, all baudied with bowsing, fat greazie lubberly sweating, and other drudgeries in the Convent"
• "All day she walked from ship to ship upon the cluttered decks in the roar of the tank engines, dodging the men bowsing down securing tackles, chi-hiking sometimes with anxious soldiers uttering strained pleasantries."
• "A nautical man would have noticed, too, that she was hove short, right over her anchor, so that no time should be lost in bowsing that up to the cathead and getting under weigh, when the time came to man the windlass and heave up the cable, with a "Yo-heave ho!""