English - Etymology 1

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

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /məʊ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /moʊ/
• Rhymes: -əʊ

Verb

mow (third-person singular simple present mows, present participle mowing, simple past mowed, past participle mowed or mown)

1. To cut something (especially grass or crops) down or knock down.

   He mowed the lawn.

Derived terms

• mow down

Translations

English - Etymology 2

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”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /məʊ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /moʊ/
• Rhymes: -əʊ

Noun

mow (plural mows)

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.

   • Shakespeare

     Make mows at him.

Translations

Verb

mow (third-person singular simple present mows, present participle mowing, simple past and past participle mowed)

1. To make grimaces, mock.
   • 1610, The Tempest, by Shakespeare, act 2 scene 2

     For every trifle are they set upon me: / Sometime like apes that mow and chatter at me, / And after bite me;

   • Tyndale

     Nodding, becking, and mowing.

Translations

English - Etymology 3

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /maʊ̯/
• Rhymes: -aʊ

Noun

mow (plural mows)

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.

Translations

Verb

mow (third-person singular simple present mows, present participle mowing, simple past and past participle mowed)

1. (agriculture) To put into mows.

Translations

English - Etymology 4

Noun

mow (plural mows)

1. alternative form of mew (a seagull)

English - See Also

• Mow in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.

English - Anagrams

• OMW, WMO

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