Mow

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /məʊ/
• US IPA: /moÊŠ/Rhymes: -əʊ

Middle English mowen (participle mowen), from Old English māwan (past tense mēow, past participle māwen), from Proto-Germanic *mēaną (cf. Dutch maaien, German mähen, Danish meje), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂meh₁- ‘to mow, reap’ (cf. Hittite hamesha ‘spring/early summer’, literally, ‘mowing time’, Ancient Greek (poetic) amân)

Full definition of mow

Verb

1. To cut something (especially grass or crops) down or knock down.He mowed the lawn.

Derived terms

• mow down

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /məʊ/
• US IPA: /moÊŠ/Rhymes: -əʊ

Middle English mowe, from Middle French moue ("lip, pout"), from Old French moe ("grimace"), from Frankish *mauwa ("pout, protruding lip"). Akin to Middle Dutch mouwe ("protruding lip"). Cognate to moue ("pout").

Noun

1. (now only dialectal) A scornful grimace; a wry face. from 14th c.
• 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Folio Society 2006, vol. 1 p. 212:Those that paint them dying ... delineate the prisoners spitting in their executioners faces, and making mowes at them.
• ShakespeareMake mows at him.

Verb

1. To make grimaces, mock.
• 1610, , by William Shakespeare, act 2 scene 2For every trifle are they set upon me:
  Sometime like apes that mow and chatter at me,
  And after bite me;
• TyndaleNodding, becking, and mowing.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /maʊ̯/Rhymes: -aÊŠ

Old English mūga. Cognate with Norwegian muge ("heap, crowd, flock").

Noun

1. (now regional) A stack of hay, corn, beans or a barn for the storage of hay, corn, beans.
2. The place in a barn where hay or grain in the sheaf is stowed.

Verb

1. (agriculture) To put into mows.

Noun

1. Alternative form of mew (a seagull)

Anagrams

• OMW, WMO