1. A long narrow pillow or cushion.
2. to support or prop up with or as if with a long narrow pillow or cushion.
3. to buoy up or hearten: visitors bolstered the patient's morale.

1. A large cushion or pillow.
2. A short, horizontal, structural timber between a post and a beam for enlarging the bearing area of the post and/or reducing the span of the beam. sometimes also called a pillow or cross-head (australian english).
3. to brace, reinforce, secure, or support.

1. A long pillow or cushion, used to support the head of a person lying on a bed; -- generally laid under the pillows.
2. A pad, quilt, or anything used to hinder pressure, support any part of the body, or make a bandage sit easy upon a wounded part; a compress.
3. anything arranged to act as a support, as in various forms of mechanism, etc.
4. A cushioned or a piece part of a saddle.
5.
6. A cushioned or a piece of soft wood covered with tarred canvas, placed on the trestletrees and against the mast, for the collars of the shrouds to rest on, to prevent chafing.
7. anything used to prevent chafing.
8. A plate of iron or a mass of wood under the end of a bridge girder, to keep the girder from resting directly on the abutment.
9. A transverse bar above the axle of a wagon, on which the bed or body rests.
10. the crossbeam forming the bearing piece of the body of a railway car; the central and principal cross beam of a car truck.
11. the perforated plate in a punching machine on which anything rests when being punched.
12.
13. that part of a knife blade which abuts upon the end of the handle.
14. the metallic end of a pocketknife handle.
15. the rolls forming the ends or sides of the ionic capital.
16. A block of wood on the carriage of a siege gun, upon which the breech of the gun rests when arranged for transportation.
17. to support with a bolster or pillow.
18. to support, hold up, or maintain with difficulty or unusual effort; -- often with up.

1. to support with a bolster.
2. to prop; support; uphold; maintain: generally implying support of a weak, falling, or unworthy cause or object, or support based on insufficient grounds: now usually with up: as, to bolster up his pretensions with lies.
3. to furnish with a bolster in dress; pad; stuff out with padding.
4. something on which to rest the head while reclining; specifically, a long cylindrical cushion stuffed with feathers, hair, straw, or other materials, and generally laid under the pillows.
5. something resembling a bolster in form or use.
6. A pad or quilt used to prevent pressure, support any part of the body, or make a bandage sit easy upon a wounded part; a compress.
7. A cushioned or padded part of a saddle.
8. Naut., pl., pieces of soft wood covered with tarred canvas, placed under the eyes of the rigging to prevent chafing from the sharp edge of the trestletrees.
9. A part of a bridge intervening between the truss and the masonry.
10. in cutlery, the part of such instruments and tools as knives, chisels, etc., which adjoins the end of the handle; also, a metallic plate on the end of a pocket-knife handle.
11. in gunnery, a block of wood on the carriage of a siege-gun, upon which the breech of the gun rests when it is moved.
12. in architecture, same as baluster, 2.
13. in music, the raised ridge which holds the tuning-pins of a piano.
14. A cap-piece or short timber placed at the top of a post as a bearing for a string-piece.
15. A perforated wooden block upon which sheet-metal is placed to be punched.
16. A sleeve-bearing through which a spindle passes.
17. in stone-sawing, one of the loose wooden blocks against which the ends of the pole of the saw rest.
18. A bar placed transversely over the axle of a wagon or in the middle of a car-truck to support the body.
19. one of the transverse pieces of an archcentering, extending between the ribs and sustaining the voussoirs during construction.
20.

1. support and strengthen
2. prop up with a pillow or bolster
3. add padding to
4. a pillow that is often put across a bed underneath the regular pillows