Word.ws English Dictionary

going to the bow-wows

going to the bow-wows is the present participle and gerund 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 going to the bow-wows

What is going to the bow-wows the present participle and gerund of?
Going to the bow-wows is the present participle and gerund of go to the bow-wows.

Words near going to the bow-wows in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: going 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.

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