wow

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: wou, IPA: /waʊ/, SAMPA: /waU/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aʊ

Etymology 1

'Wow' is Scottish in origin. It appears in the poems of Allan Ramsay the poet (1686–1758) and of Robert Burns as in "And, wow! Tam saw an unco sight!" - 'Tam o' Shanter' poem. The word is probably a contraction of the interjection 'I vow!'. The word travelled to America where it took root and returned to the U.K. probably in the 20th century.

This definition is lacking an etymology or has an incomplete etymology. You can help Wiktionary by giving it a proper etymology.

Interjection

wow

1. An indication of excitement or surprise.

   Wow! I never expected this!

2. An expression of amazement or awe.

   Wow! How do they do that?

Synonyms

• See also Wikisaurus:wow

Derived terms

• wowzer

Translations

excitement

Armenian: մաման-ծաղկաման (hy) (maman-çaġkaman) Esperanto: ŭaŭ  (eo) Finnish: vau! French: waouh (fr), ouah (fr) German: Toll (de)! Hiligaynon: abá Hindi: वाह (hi) (vāh)

Hungarian: hűha (hu)! tyű (hu)! tyűha (hu)! ejha (hu)! Korean: 우와 (ko) (Uwa) Persian: به (fa) (bah) Polish: wow (pl)!, o rany Russian: ух ты (ru) (ux ty) Turkish: vay (tr), vay canına (tr) Urdu: واہ (ur) (vāh), وا (ur) (vā)

amazement

Armenian: մաման-ծաղկաման (hy) (maman-çaġkaman) Chinese: Mandarin: 哇塞 (cmn) (wāsài), 哇 (cmn) (wā), 哎呀 (cmn) (āiyā) Finnish: vau!, o-ho! French: ouah! (fr), oh! (fr) Hiligaynon: abá Hungarian: hűha (hu)! tyű (hu)! tyűha (hu)! ejha (hu)! Icelandic: vá (is)

Japanese: ワウ (ja) (wā), すごい！ (ja) (sugoi!) Latin: hui (la)! Persian: به (fa) (bah) Portuguese: uau (pt) Russian: ого (ru) (ogó, ohó), ничего себе! (ru) (ničevó sebé!), ба (ru) (ba) Turkish: vay (tr), vay canına (tr)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Translations to be checked

Dutch: wauw! French: oh ! oh là là ! ouah (fr) ! Icelandic: vá! Italian: uao!

Romanian: uau! Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: вау Roman: vau Spanish: ¡uau!, ¡guau!

Verb

wow (third-person singular simple present wows, present participle wowing, simple past and past participle wowed)

1. To amaze or awe.

   He really wowed the audience.

Noun

wow (plural wows)

1. An exceptionally surprising or unbelievable fact.

   He did? That's a wow!

Etymology 2

Acronym

Proper noun

wow

1. w:World Of Warcraft, a computer based MMORPG

Synonyms

• WoW

See also

• World of Warcraft on Wikipedia.Wikipedia:World of Warcraft

Anagrams

• oww