bolsterer

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bol·ster

(bōl′stər)

A long narrow pillow or cushion.

tr.v. bol·stered, bol·ster·ing, bol·sters

1. To support or prop up with or as if with a long narrow pillow or cushion.

2. To buoy up or hearten: Visitors bolstered the patient's morale.

[Middle English, from Old English; see bhelgh- in Indo-European roots.]

bol′ster·er n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.