Word.ws English Dictionary

bow up

UK/ˌbəʊ ˈʌp/US/ˌboʊ ˈəp/

bow up verb: to become overtaken by impatience, anger or frustration; to reach one's limit; to square up or assert oneself.

Verb

bow up (third-person singular simple present bows up, present participle bowing up, simple past and past participle bowed up)

  1. (Southern US) To become overtaken by impatience, anger or frustration; to reach one's limit; to square up or assert oneself.

Forms of bow up

third-person singular presentbows up
present participlebowing up
past participlebowed up
pastbowed up

Questions about bow up

What does bow up mean?
Bow up means to become overtaken by impatience, anger or frustration; to reach one's limit; to square up or assert oneself.
What part of speech is bow up?
Bow up is a verb.
How do you pronounce bow up?
Bow up is pronounced /ˌbəʊ ˈʌp/ (UK).
What is the past tense of bow up?
The past tense of bow up is bowed up.

Words near bow up in the dictionary

  1. bow thruster
  2. bow thrusters
  3. bow tie
  4. bow ties
  5. bow to
  6. bow up
  7. bow wave
  8. bow waves
  9. bow window
  10. bow windows
  11. bow wow

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bow up (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.

Last updated:

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