trow

See also: Trow

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English trowen, trouwen, treuwen, treowen, trouen, from Old English trēowan, trīewan (“to trust”) and Old English trūwian (“to trust, confide”), from Proto-Germanic *trewwāną (“to trust”) and Proto-Germanic *trūwāną (“to trust”); both from Proto-Indo-European *drew- (“faithful, true”).

Akin to Scots trow, trew (“to believe, trust, confide in, prove”), Dutch trouwen (“to wed, marry”), German trauen (“to trust, marry”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål and Swedish tro (“to believe, think”), Norwegian Nynorsk tru (“to believe, think”), Icelandic trúa (“to trust, believe, believe in”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /tɹoʊ/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /tɹəʊ/
• Rhymes: -əʊ
• Homophone: throw (th-stopping)

Verb

trow (third-person singular simple present trows, present participle trowing, simple past and past participle trowed)

1. (archaic or dialectal) To trust or believe.
   • 1567, Arthur Golding: Ovid's Metamorphoses; Bk. 2 lines 527-9:

     ...Sure (he said) my wife shall never know

     Of this escape, and if she do, I know the worst I trow

     She can but chide, shall feare of chiding make me to forslow?

   • 1869, R[ichard] D[oddridge] Blackmore, chapter X, in Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston, […], →OCLC:

     Finding me stick to her still like wax, for my mettle was up as hers was, away she flew with me swifter than ever I went before, or since, I trow.

   • 1880, Richard Francis Burton, Os Lusíadas, volume I, page 23:

     "And as their valour, so you trow, defied
     on aspe'rous voyage cruel harm and sore,
     so many changing skies their manhood tried,
     such climes where storm-winds blow and billows roar[.]"

   • 1895, Kenneth Graham, The Golden Age, London, page 6:

     But was the matter allowed to end there? I trow not.

2. (archaic or dialectal) To have confidence in, or to give credence to.

Noun

trow (usually uncountable, plural trows)

1. (archaic or dialectal) Trust or faith.

Etymology 2

Noun

trow (countable and uncountable, plural trows)

1. (dated, nautical, countable) Any of several flat-bottomed sailing boats used for fishing or for carrying bulk goods.

Etymology 3

From Shetlandic and Orcadian Scots trow, from Norn *drou, *drau (compare 18th c. Norwegian drau, modern drov, drauv), from Old Norse draugr (“malevolent revenant”); along the variation drow, intermixed with Norn troll, from Old Norse trǫll (“troll, malevolent supernatural being”), a partial synonym to draugr. L-vocalisation occurred in the early 15th century in Middle Scots, so trolly, knolls probably became *trowie, knowes around this time.

Noun

trow (plural trows)

1. (Orkney, Shetland, mythology, dated) Alternative form of drow.
   • 1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 261:

     The Trows are of a diminutive stature, and they are usually dressed in gay green garments.

Etymology 4

Shortened form of trousers.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tɹaʊ/
• Rhymes: -aʊ

Noun

trow (uncountable)

1. (dated, uncountable) Used chiefly in the expression drop trow.

Anagrams

• ROTW, rowt, wort

Middle English

Etymology 1

Noun

trow

1. alternative form of tre

Etymology 2

Noun

trow

1. alternative form of trogh

Scots

Etymology

From Norn *drou, *drau (compare 18th c. Norwegian drau, modern drov, drauv), from Old Norse draugr (“malevolent revenant”); along the variation drow, intermixed with Norn troll, from Old Norse trǫll (“troll, malevolent supernatural being”), a partial synonym to draugr. L-vocalisation occurred in the early 15th century in Middle Scots, so trolly, knolls probably became *trowie, knowes around this time.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /trʌu/

Noun

trow (plural trows)

1. A mischievous sprite or fairy.
   • 1883, R. M. Fergusson, Rambling Sketches in the Far North:

     Trowies canna tak' thoo' Hushie ba, lammie.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1924, Orkney Antiquarian Society, Proceedings of the Orkney Antiquarian Society 1923–31:

     After a while he cried out that he was “on the back o' the trow”. Then the “ould trow woman” dropped him.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

References

“Trow”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, retrieved 14 May 2026.