Word.ws English Dictionary

avowed

/əˈvaʊd/

avowed is the simple past and past participle of avow.

Adjective

avowed (not comparable)

  1. openly acknowledged
  2. positively stated
    • There was considerable scepticism as to whether the line would pay, but its avowed intention was to put an end to the slave trade.1950 April, Timothy H. Cobb, “The Kenya-Uganda Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 262
    • An avowed aim of the 1962 Transport Act was to concentrate the BRB's attention on running trains.1964 May, “News and Comment: Minister hamstrings BR workshops”, in Modern Railways, page 291
  3. asserted under oath, or vow
    • His first avowed intent, to be a pilgrim - Who would true valour see1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress

Meaning of avow

Verb

avow (third-person singular simple present avows, present participle avowing, simple past and past participle avowed)

  1. (transitive) To declare openly and boldly, as something believed to be right; to own, acknowledge or confess frankly.
    • […] in 1786, and for some period later, there were few, if any, prominent Americans, who avowed themselves in favor of broadly democratic systems.1858, Henry Stephens Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson, volume 1, page 461
  2. (transitive) To bind or devote by a vow.
    • No man may halewe and avowe the firste gendrid thingis that perteynen to the Lord, whether it is oxe, whether scheep, tho ben the Lordis part.c. 1382–1395, John Wycliffe [et al.], edited by Josiah Forshall and Frederic Madden, The Holy Bible, […], volume I, Oxford: At the University Press, published 1850, →OCLC, Leviticus 27:26, page 362...
  3. To acknowledge and justify, as an act done. See avowry.
    • avow himself the accomplice of his crimes1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC

See all 4 meanings of avow

Origin of avowed

From avow + -ed.

Words formed from avowed

Words that rhyme with avowed

20 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about avowed

What does avowed mean?
Avowed means openly acknowledged.
What is avowed the simple past and past participle of?
Avowed is the simple past and past participle of avow.
What part of speech is avowed?
Avowed is an adjective.
How do you pronounce avowed?
Avowed is pronounced /əˈvaʊd/.

Words near avowed in the dictionary

  1. avowals
  2. avowance
  3. avowances
  4. avowant
  5. avowants
  6. avowed
  7. avowedly
  8. avowedness
  9. avowee
  10. avowees
  11. avower

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: avowed (page history and authors); avow (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-avowed.wav.

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