FluentPlex

bow

/baʊ/ verb C2
  1. To bend oneself as a gesture of respect or deference. (intransitive) · That singer always bows towards her audience for some reason.
  2. To debut. (intransitive, transitive)
  3. To defer (to something). (intransitive) · I bow to your better judgement in the matter.
  4. To give a direction, indication, or command to by bowing. (transitive)
  5. To give up or cease resisting. (intransitive) · I'll never bow to that tyrant.

He/she/it bows · Past bowed · Past participle bowed · -ing form bowing

+ Save to review

Verb forms

Base form
bow
He/she/it
bows
Past
bowed
Past participle
bowed
-ing form
bowing

From the library

“If I put an end to your enemy, will you bow down to me and obey me as King of the Forest?” inquired the Lion.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, p. 135 · B2
But the little old woman walked up to Dorothy, made a low bow and said, in a sweet voice:
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, p. 6 · B2
“Cedant arma togæ,” said Villefort with a bow.
The Count of Monte Cristo, p. 51 · C1
Dorothy was puzzled at this, for it sounded queer to hear a stuffed man speak, and to see him bow and walk along beside her.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, p. 17 · B2

Other matches

Learn bow in real texts

With a free account, hover any word in the library for its meaning, hear it read aloud, save words for review timed to your memory, and see how much of each book you already know.

Create free account
Words, meanings, pronunciations and translations from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); how common each word is from wordfreq. Made into this dictionary by FluentPlex.