Word.ws English Dictionary

goes to the bow-wows

goes to the bow-wows is the third-person singular simple present indicative of go to the bow-wows.

Meaning of go to the bow-wows

Verb

go to the bow-wows (third-person singular simple present goes to the bow-wows, present participle going to the bow-wows, simple past went to the bow-wows, past participle gone to the bow-wows)

  1. (dated, idiomatic, informal) To go to the dogs, to decline or deteriorate.
    • With lavish hand his cash he spent,
      And with lightning speed to the bow-wows went
      And into the gutter fell.1896, Arthur G. Burgoyne, “Timon of Athens” in Shakespeare Up to Date, and Other Latter-Day Lyrics, Pittsburg: T. W. Nevin, p. 16

Questions about goes to the bow-wows

What is goes to the bow-wows the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Goes to the bow-wows is the third-person singular simple present indicative of go to the bow-wows.

Words near goes to the bow-wows in the dictionary

  1. goes to sleep
  2. goes to smash
  3. goes to someone's head
  4. goes to the bad
  5. goes to the bathroom
  6. goes to the bow-wows
  7. goes to the country
  8. goes to the devil
  9. goes to the dogs
  10. goes to the ends of the earth
  11. goes to the ends of the world

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: goes to the bow-wows (page history and authors); go to the bow-wows (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:

Cite this entry: “goes to the bow-wows.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/goes_to_the_bow-wows. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.