Word.ws English Dictionary

frow

/fɹaʊ//fɹəʊ/

frow noun: a woman; a wife, especially a Dutch or German one. Also the alternative spelling of froe.

Noun

frow (plural frows)

  1. A woman; a wife, especially a Dutch or German one.
    • Mrs. Frances, a Frow, Daughter to Vanlockc. 1622, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger [et al.?], “Beggars Bush”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, (please...
    • […] on our way we stopped at several houses, our companions having numerous acquaintances among the young frows, to flirt with after their ungainly fashion. Cape Dutch is not the language for love.1846, Captain Butler, A Glimpse of the Frontier, and a Gallop through the Cape Colony, W. Harrison Ainsworth (editor), The New Monthly Magazine and Humorist, 1846, Part 2, page 466
  2. (obsolete) A slovenly woman; a wench; a lusty woman.
  3. (obsolete) A big, fat woman; a slovenly, coarse, or untidy woman; a woman of low character.

Adjective

frow (comparative more frow, superlative most frow)

  1. (dialectal) Brittle; tender; crisp
    • that which grows in gravel is subject to be frow, as they term it , and brittle1664, J[ohn] E[velyn], Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-trees and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesties Dominions. […], London: […] Jo[hn] Martyn, and Ja[mes] Allestry, printers to the Royal...

Also used as

frow is also the alternative spelling of froe.

Forms of frow

Noun
pluralfrows
Adjective
comparativemore frow
superlativemost frow

Origin of frow

From Middle Dutch vrouwe (“lady”), from Old Dutch *frōwa, from Proto-West Germanic *frauwjā, from Proto-Germanic *frawjǭ (“lady, mistress”), from Proto-Indo-European *prōw- (“right; judge, master”). Cognate with Dutch vrouw (“woman, wife, lady, mistress”), Low German frouw, frauw (“woman, wife, lady”), German Frau (“woman, wife, lady”), Swedish fru, Icelandic freyja (“lady, mistress”, in compounds), Old English frōwe (“woman”), Old English frēa (“lord, master, husband”). Doublet of frau, vrou, and vrouw.

From Middle English frow, frough, frogh, frouh, frouȝ (“brittle; tender; fickle; slack; loose”), cognate with Scots frooch, freuch (“dry and brittle”). Of obscure origin. Perhaps also related to Middle Dutch vro, vroo, Middle Low German vrô, German froh.

Words formed from frow

  • frowish

Words that rhyme with frow

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about frow

What does frow mean?
Frow means a woman; a wife, especially a Dutch or German one.
What part of speech is frow?
Frow can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce frow?
Frow is pronounced /fɹaʊ/.
What is the plural of frow?
The plural of frow is frows.

Words near frow in the dictionary

  1. frouziest
  2. frouzily
  3. frouzy
  4. frovatriptan
  5. frover
  6. frow
  7. froward
  8. frowardly
  9. frowardness
  10. frowardnesses
  11. frowards

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: frow (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:

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

Cite this entry: “frow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/frow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.