chowchow

See also: chow chow, chow-chow, and Chow Chow

English

Alternative forms

• chow-chow, chow chow

Etymology

Borrowed from Chinese Pidgin English chow-chow (“food”). Compare Macanese chau-cháu.

Noun

chowchow (countable and uncountable, plural chowchows)

1. A Chinese preserve. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
2. An American relish, containing pickled green tomatoes, cabbage, and often other vegetables.

   Synonyms: India relish, piccalilli

3. A fruit ketchup.

   Synonyms: catsup, ketchup

4. (slang, obsolete, Anglo-Chinese) Gossip.
5. (informal, figurative) A miscellaneous assortment of anything.
   • 2011, Barbara Hambly, Those Who Hunt the Night:

     The drawer was crammed with a chowchow of bills, most of them yellow and cracking with age, letters still shoved into embossed envelopes which bore illegible handwritten franks instead of postage marks or stamps, and little wads of notes issued by banks long collapsed.

6. Alternative letter-case form of Chow Chow (“a type of dog”).

Translations

ketchup

• French: chow chow m

Verb

chowchow (third-person singular simple present chowchows, present participle chowchowing, simple past and past participle chowchowed)

1. (slang, obsolete, Anglo-Chinese, intransitive) To gossip.
   • 1861, The London and China Telegraph, page 316:

     […] some ten or twelve fellows were chow chowing and drinking, playing at the Chinese game with their fingers, shouting and yelling like demons.

Adjective

chowchow (not comparable)

1. (slang, obsolete, Anglo-Chinese) Consisting of several kinds mingled together; mixed.

   chowchow sweetmeats (preserved fruits put together)

Derived terms

• chowchow chop

French

Noun

chowchow m (plural chowchows)

1. alternative form of chow chow