Word.ws English Dictionary

gone to the bow-wows

gone to the bow-wows is the past participle 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 gone to the bow-wows

What is gone to the bow-wows the past participle of?
Gone to the bow-wows is the past participle of go to the bow-wows.

Words near gone to the bow-wows in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gone 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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