mow

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English [edit]

Pronunciation [edit]

Etymology 1 [edit]

Middle English mowen, from Old English māwan, 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)

Verb [edit]

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 [edit]
Translations [edit]
to cut something down

Etymology 2 [edit]

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

Noun [edit]

mow (plural mows)

  1. (now regional) A stack of hay, corn, beans or a barn for the storage of hay, corn, beans.
Translations [edit]
a stack or barn of/for hay, corn, beans

Verb [edit]

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

  1. (agriculture) To put into mows.
Translations [edit]
to put into mows

Etymology 3 [edit]

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 [edit]

mow (plural mows)

  1. (now only dialectal) A scornful grimace. [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.
Translations [edit]
a grimace

Verb [edit]

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;
Translations [edit]
to make grimaces, mock

See also [edit]

Anagrams [edit]

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