Word.ws English Dictionary

chowchow

chowchow noun: a Chinese preserve. Also the alternative letter-case form of Chow Chow.

Noun

chowchow (countable and uncountable, plural chowchows)

  1. A Chinese preserve.
  2. An American relish, containing pickled green tomatoes, cabbage, and often other vegetables.
  3. A fruit ketchup.
    Synonyms:
    catsup, ketchup
  4. (obsolete, slang) Gossip.
  5. (figuratively, informal) A miscellaneous assortment of anything.
    • 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.2011, Barbara Hambly, Those Who Hunt the Night

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive, obsolete, slang) To gossip.
    • […] some ten or twelve fellows were chow chowing and drinking, playing at the Chinese game with their fingers, shouting and yelling like demons.1861, The London and China Telegraph, page 316

Adjective

chowchow (not comparable)

  1. (obsolete, slang) Consisting of several kinds mingled together; mixed.
    • chowchow sweetmeats (preserved fruits put together)

Also used as

chowchow is also the alternative letter-case form of Chow Chow.

Synonyms of chowchow

Forms of chowchow

Noun
pluralchowchows
alternative formchow-chow
alternative formchow chow
Verb
third-person singular presentchowchows
present participlechowchowing
past participlechowchowed
pastchowchowed

Origin of chowchow

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

Words formed from chowchow

Phrases with chowchow

Questions about chowchow

What does chowchow mean?
Chowchow means a Chinese preserve.
What part of speech is chowchow?
Chowchow can be a noun, a verb or an adjective.
What is the plural of chowchow?
The plural of chowchow is chowchows.

Words near chowchow in the dictionary

  1. Chowan Creek
  2. Chowaniec
  3. Chowaniecs
  4. chowchilla
  5. chowchillas
  6. chowchow
  7. chowchow chop
  8. chowchow chops
  9. chowchowed
  10. chowchowing
  11. chowchows

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chowchow (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: “chowchow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chowchow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.