Word.ws English Dictionary

kotow

/ˈkoʊˈtaʊ/

kotow is the alternative spelling of kowtow.

Meaning of kowtow

Noun

kowtow (plural kowtows)

  1. (intransitive) The act of kowtowing.
    • Three elders dressed in their long silk ceremonial gowns perform the kowtow before the altar in their clan ancestral hall.1990, Hugh D. R. Baker, Hong Kong Images: People and Animals, Hong Kong University Press, →ISBN, page 93
    Synonyms:
    dogeza

See all 4 meanings of kowtow

Forms of kotow

Noun
pluralkotows
Verb
third-person singular presentkotows
present participlekotowing
past participlekotowed
pastkotowed

Questions about kotow

What is kotow the alternative spelling of?
Kotow is the alternative spelling of kowtow.
How do you pronounce kotow?
Kotow is pronounced /ˈkoʊˈtaʊ/.

Words near kotow in the dictionary

  1. kotooing
  2. kotoos
  3. Kotor
  4. kotos
  5. Kotosho
  6. kotow
  7. kotowed
  8. kotower
  9. kotowers
  10. kotowing
  11. kotowings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kotow (page history and authors); kowtow (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: “kotow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kotow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.