In the sense that it's the thing that you fire arrows from, bows are made of different types of materials like wood (ash, yew), bone, sinew, and other modern composite materials. The draw weight of a bow varies with the construction and type of bowstring. The main types of bows are composite bows, recurve bows, compound bows, short bows, and long bows. Composite refers to the construction and can be applied to any of the other types of bows, ex. a composite compound bow.