Word.ws English Dictionary

gow

/ɡaʊ/US/ɡaʊ/

gow is the alternative spelling of jow.

Meaning of jow

Noun

jow (plural jows)

  1. (historical) A premetric unit of length in India, equal to approximately a quarter of an inch.

See all 5 meanings of jow

Noun

gow (uncountable)

  1. (colloquial, dated) Opium.

Proper noun capitalized: Gow

Gow

  1. A Scottish surname from Scottish Gaelic.

Forms of gow

pluralgows

Origin of gow

From Chinese 膏 (gāo, “ointment”), probably as a shortening of 藥膏／药膏 (yàogāo).

From Scottish Gaelic gobha (“smith”).

Phrases with gow

Words that rhyme with gow

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about gow

What does gow mean?
Gow means opium.
What is gow the alternative spelling of?
Gow is the alternative spelling of jow.
What part of speech is gow?
Gow can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce gow?
Gow is pronounced /ɡaʊ/ (US).
What is the plural of gow?
The plural of gow is gows.

Words near gow in the dictionary

  1. govts.
  2. Govvaafushi
  3. govvies
  4. govvy
  5. govware
  6. gow
  7. Gow.
  8. gowan
  9. Gowanbrae
  10. gowaned
  11. Gowanford

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gow (page history and authors); Gow (page history and authors); jow (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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Cite this entry: “gow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.