Word.ws English Dictionary

bowed and scraped

bowed and scraped is the simple past and past participle of bow and scrape.

Meaning of bow and scrape

Verb

bow and scrape (third-person singular simple present bows and scrapes, present participle bowing and scraping, simple past and past participle bowed and scraped)

  1. To make a deep bow with the right leg drawn back (thus scraping the floor), left hand pressed across the abdomen, right arm held aside.
    Synonyms:
    make a leg
  2. (broadly, idiomatic) To behave in a servile, obsequious, or excessively polite manner.
    • But he is not one of those lawyers who bow and scrape before wealthy clients. He will not be pushed around.1988 March 27, Newgate Callendar, "Crime" (book review of The Vulgar Boatman by William G. Tapply), New York Times (retrieved 25 Nov 2012)

See all 3 meanings of bow and scrape

Questions about bowed and scraped

What is bowed and scraped the simple past and past participle of?
Bowed and scraped is the simple past and past participle of bow and scrape.

Words near bowed and scraped in the dictionary

  1. bowdrill
  2. Bowdry
  3. Bowdrys
  4. bowe
  5. bowed
  6. bowed and scraped
  7. bowed down
  8. bowed down before the porcelain god
  9. bowed dulcimer
  10. bowed dulcimers
  11. bowed guitar

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bowed and scraped (page history and authors); bow and scrape (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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Cite this entry: “bowed and scraped.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bowed_and_scraped. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.