Definition of "tower" []

• A building or part of a building that is exceptionally high in proportion to its width and length. (noun)
• A tall, slender structure used for observation, signaling, or pumping. (noun)
• One that conspicuously embodies strength, firmness, or another virtue. (noun)
• Computer Science A computer system whose components are arranged in a vertical stack and housed in a tall, narrow cabinet. (noun)
• To appear at or rise to a conspicuous height; loom: "There he stood, grown suddenly tall, towering above them” ( J.R.R. Tolkien). See Synonyms at rise. (verb-intransitive)

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.

• "For example, consider the widely accepted sixteenth-century ˜tower argument™ against the Copernican claim that the earth moves: the earth can't be moving, because a stone released from a tower will fall ˜straight down™ to the foot of the tower, and not land some distance to the west as apparently required by Copernicus."
• "Before Gerald left the old tower (_my tower_) which was alone spared by the flames, and at which he had resided, though without his household, rather than quit"
• "An ancient Roman tower, of which a few walls only now remain, on the route to Agen, was once a conspicuous object from the river: it was called _La Tourrasse_, ( "_enormous tower_" in _patois_), and many discoveries prove the importance of this place in the time of the"