kowtow
/ˈkaʊˌtaʊ/
kowtow verb: to kneel and bow low enough to touch one’s forehead to the ground.
Verb
kowtow (third-person singular simple present kowtows, present participle kowtowing, simple past and past participle kowtowed)
- To kneel and bow low enough to touch one’s forehead to the ground.
- When the weather turned cold, the tears that he shed would become frozen like veins; the blood on his forehead from kowtowing would also freeze and would not drip.2013, Wendy Swartz, Robert Ford Campany, Yang Lu, Jessey J. C. Choo, Early Medieval China: A Sourcebook, Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 645
- To grovel, act in a very submissive manner; to show obeisance to (someone or something) in such a manner; to bow.
- I suppose you're going to be nice to Odie and kowtow to Jon and lick the mailman's boots! I don't like you already.1984 December 30, Jim Davis, Garfield (comic)
- The letter to Razin contained another thought that preoccupied Stalin in the first months after the war: the need to avoid “kowtowing to the West,” including showing “unwarranted respect” for the “military authorities of Germany.”2015, Oleg V. Khlevniuk, Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator, Yale University Press, →ISBN, page 265
- To bow very deeply.
Noun
kowtow (plural kowtows)
- 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
kowtow meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
kowtow in Tamil
- வணக்கம், அடிமைப்பணிவாக நட
kowtow in Urdu
- ڈنڈوت کرنا, ذلت اختیار کرنا
kowtow in Bengali
- সাষ্টাঙ্গ প্রণাম, কাউটাউ, অতিরিক্ত বিনয়, তোষামোদ, চাটুকারিতা, অত্যন্ত বিনয়
kowtow in Malayalam
- bow (down before), prostrate oneself, genuflect
- താണുവണങ്ങുക, സാഷ്ടാംഗം വീഴുക, കാൽക്കൽവീഴുക, സാഷ്ടാംഗം പ്രണമിക്കുക, നമസ്കിക്കുക, അടിയുക
- be servile, grovel, be obsequious
- അമിതവിധേയത്വം കാണിക്കുക, അടിപണിയുക, മുട്ടുകുത്തുക, വണങ്ങുക, വഴങ്ങുക, എളിമപ്പെടുക
More languagesFewer languages
- kowtow in Arabic
- سَجَدَ sajada, تَمَلَّقَ tamallaqa, رَكَعَ rakaʕa
- kowtow in Vietnamese
- lạy, khấu đầu, quỳ lạy, khúm núm
Synonyms of kowtow
Forms of kowtow
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | kowtows |
| present participle | kowtowing |
| past participle | kowtowed |
| past | kowtowed |
| alternative form | kotow |
| alternative form | ko-tow |
| alternative form | kow-tow |
| alternative form (obsolete) | kotoo |
| Noun | |
| plural | kowtows |
Origin of kowtow
From either Cantonese 叩頭 /叩头 (kau³ tau⁴) or Mandarin 叩頭 /叩头 (kòutóu). Literally, “knock head”.
Words formed from kowtow
Words that rhyme with kowtow
Questions about kowtow
- What does kowtow mean?
- Kowtow means to kneel and bow low enough to touch one’s forehead to the ground.
- What is kowtow in Tamil?
- Kowtow in Tamil is வணக்கம், அடிமைப்பணிவாக நட. See Kowtow meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is kowtow?
- Kowtow can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce kowtow?
- Kowtow is pronounced /ˈkaʊˌtaʊ/.
- What is the past tense of kowtow?
- The past tense of kowtow is kowtowed.
Words near kowtow in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: kowtow (page history and authors); kowtow (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); kowtow (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); kowtow (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); kowtow (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-kowtow.ogg, en-au-kowtow.ogg.
Cite this entry: “kowtow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kowtow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.