Word.ws English Dictionary

gallow

/ˈɡæləʊ/

gallow verb: to frighten, alarm, scare, or terrify. Also the ellipsis of gallow glyph.

Verb

gallow (third-person singular simple present gallows, present participle gallowing, simple past and past participle gallowed)

  1. (dialectal, transitive) To frighten, alarm, scare, or terrify.
    • The wrathful skies / Gallow the very wanderers of the dark / And make them keep their caves.c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
  2. (dialectal, transitive) To drive or scare away.
  3. (dialectal, transitive) To confuse with noise.

Proper noun capitalized: Gallow

Gallow (plural Gallows)

  1. A surname.

Also used as

gallow is also the ellipsis of gallow glyph.

Synonyms of gallow

Forms of gallow

Verb
third-person singular presentgallows
present participlegallowing
past participlegallowed
pastgallowed
alternative form (dialectal)gally
alternative form (dialectal)galler
alternative form (dialectal)gall
alternative form (obsolete)galley
Noun
pluralgallows
Proper noun
pluralGallows

Origin of gallow

From Middle English *galowen, *galewen, *galwen (attested in begalewen (“to frighten”)), from Old English *gǣlwan, *gēlwan (attested in āgǣlwed, āgēlwed (“stupified, astonished, disconcerted”)), of unknown origin. Alternative forms gally, galley perhaps influenced by Middle English galyen, galien, variants of galen (“to cry out, shout, make a harsh cry”), from Old English galan (“to sing, call”). Compare also Old Norse gala (“to sing, shout, crow”), Old Norse gjalla (“to yell, shout”).

Phrases with gallow

Words that rhyme with gallow

Questions about gallow

What does gallow mean?
Gallow means to frighten, alarm, scare, or terrify.
What part of speech is gallow?
Gallow can be a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce gallow?
Gallow is pronounced /ˈɡæləʊ/.
What is the past tense of gallow?
The past tense of gallow is gallowed.

Words near gallow in the dictionary

  1. gallotannins
  2. gallous
  3. gallousness
  4. Gallovidian
  5. Gallovidians
  6. gallow
  7. gallow character
  8. gallow glyph
  9. gallow glyphs
  10. gallow tree
  11. gallow trees

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gallow (page history and authors); Gallow (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-gallow.wav.

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