Names for someone who make bows (for shooting arrows)

Question

My feeling is that bow-maker is the only current word for this meaning. Any others?

The context is translation from a Chinese sutra (Fǎjù jīng 14.7):

弓工調角 Bow-makers master horn —
  
  水人調船 watermen master boats —
  
  材匠調木 carpenters master wood —
  
  智者調身 the wise master themselves.

There's an old word bowyer that I fear is extinct. Current bower is easily confused with a lot of other meanings: shaded resting place, one who bows at the waist, one who plays an instrument with a bow, anchors suspended from the bow of a boat.

A fletcher is primarily an arrow-maker (from French flèche 'arrow'), but the OED has a sixteenth-century example where it seems to mean someone who makes bows.

There's also a defunct word artiller for this meaning.

Jason Bassford · Accepted Answer

Actually, the definition of bowyer in Merriam-Webster shows only a single sense:

: a maker of shooting bows
  
  Zeljko Ilicic, bowyer, a maker of wooden bows and arrows, moulds a piece of wood to make a bow, in his workshop in the town of Lapovo, in central Serbia, Friday, Oct. 27, 2017. — Washington Post, "AP PHOTOS: Serbian bowyer inspired by childhood games," 14 Dec. 2017
  
  Bow makers, known as bowyers, layer the wood with fiberglass, resin and occasionally some carbon (similar to what’s done in ski construction). —
  Brigid Mander, WSJ, "Archery: The Ultimate Antidote to Information Overload," 6 July 2017

Similarly, Oxford only lists a single sense of the word:

A person who makes or sells archers' bows.

So, bowyer seems quite correct and not at all archaic.

Meanwhile, bower (Merriam-Webster), which is a different word, provides no such sense in its definition.

Names for someone who make bows (for shooting arrows)

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