"toxophile," "self bow"

[Jonathan Lighter]

OED has _toxophilite_ from 1794 and 1813 but not _toxophile:

1994 Robert Drews _The Coming of the Greeks_ (Princeton U.P.) 87: Some toxophiles conclude that the composite bow was known as early as the beginning of the fifth millennium.

Drews and others use the term _self bow_, also missing from OED, to refer to the earlier unimproved bow. Am not sure why:

1994 Robert Drews _The Coming of the Greeks_ (Princeton U.P.) 87:
The enormous discrepancy in scholarly opinions on this subject reflects the difficulty in distinguishing, in artistic representations, a self bow from a composite bow.


JL



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