-ów

See also: ow, ów, -ow, and 'ow

Polish

Etymology

Archaic noun ending used to create possessive forms, equivalent to English 's or of. For instance, Bolków literally means "Bolko's" or "of Bolko". Cognate with Russian -ов (-ov), Ukrainian -ів (-iv), Belarusian -аў (-aŭ) (unstressed)/-оў (-oŭ) (stressed). In modern Polish, the same ending is used for genitive plurals of masculine nouns.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /uf/

Suffix

-ów

1. used to create village and town names, especially in south Poland

Usage notes

• Examples include Kraków, Chorzów, Gorzów Wielkopolski. In many cases the root is archaic or a relict from a protolanguage, so unambiguous etymological reconstruction is impossible.

Declension

Declension of -ów

	singular
nominative	-ów
genitive	-owa
dative	-owowi
accusative	-ów
instrumental	-owem
locative	-owie
vocative	-owie

Derived terms

Polish terms suffixed with -ów