chow

See also: Chow

English[edit]

Shortened from chow-chow.

chow (usually uncountable, plural chows)

(slang, uncountable) Food, especially snacks.

I'm going to pick up some chow for dinner.
A Chinese breed of dog; the Chow Chow.
- 1914, Saki, ‘The Lull’, Beasts and Superbeasts:
  
  ‘I'd try and grapple with him myself, only I've got my chow in my room, you know, and he goes for pigs wherever he finds them.’
- 1988 March 4, Jane Weinberg, “First Person: Me and Georgia O'Keeffe”, Chicago Reader:
  
  While we were talking, one of the chows, the rusty one, had come over to me and I was absently petting him.
(chiefly Australia, slang, now rare) A Chinese person.
- 1977, John Le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy, Folio Society 2010, p. 11:
  
  ‘Now look here old man if you should ever bump into an interesting Chow from over the river – one with access, follow me? – just you remember High Haven!’

Food, especially snacks

Russian: жратва (ru) f (žratvá) (slang, impolite), хавчик (ru) m (xávčik)(slang, impolite), харчи (ru) m pl (xarčí) (colloquial)
Serbo-Croatian:

Cyrillic: клопа f (slang)

Roman: klopa f (slang)
Vietnamese: thức ăn

dog breed

chow (third-person singular simple present chows, present participle chowing, simple past and past participle chowed)

From Chinese.

This entry lacks etymological information. If you are familiar with the origin of this term, please add it to the page as described here.

chow (third-person singular simple present chows, present participle chowing, simple past and past participle chowed)

(Mahjong) To (use a tile or tiles to) piece together a winning combination of tiles.
- 2007, Eleanor Noss Whitney, A Mah Jong Handbook: How to Play, Score, and Win, page 154:
  
  […] while the adversary on his right will repeatedly bury in the discard the very tiles he wishes to chow but can't.