Word.ws English Dictionary

prow

/pɹaʊ/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

obsolete/pɹoʊ/

prow noun: the front part of a vessel. Also the alternative form of proa.

prow: the front part of a vessel
Image: W.carter, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

prow (plural prows)

  1. The front part of a vessel.
    • The floating vessel swum / Uplifted, and secure with beaked prow / rode tilting o'er the waves.1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost
    • We were already rather close in; but I ordered the U-33's prow turned inshore and we crept slowly along, constantly dipping up the water and tasting it to assure ourselves that we didn't get outside the fresh-water current.1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter IV, in Hugo Gernsback, editor...
    Synonyms:
    bow, stem, fore, forestem, prore
    Antonyms:
    stern, aft, poop
  2. A vessel.

Adjective

prow (comparative prower, superlative prowest)

  1. (archaic) Brave, valiant, gallant.
    • For they be two the prowest knights on ground, / And oft approu’d in many hard assay […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

Proper noun capitalized: Prow

Prow (plural Prows)

  1. A surname.

Also used as

prow is also the alternative form of proa.

prow meaning in Tagalog and Vietnamese

prow in Tagalog

fore part of a vessel; bow
duong, doong

prow in Vietnamese

fore part of a vessel; bow
mũi

Synonyms of prow

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of prow

Forms of prow

Noun
pluralprows
Adjective
comparativeprower
superlativeprowest
Proper noun
pluralProws

Origin of prow

From Middle French proue, proe, from Ligurian prua, proa, from Latin prōra, from Ancient Greek πρῷρα (prōîra).

From Middle English prow, from Old French prou, from Late Latin prode; more at proud.

Variant of Prue.

Words formed from prow

Words that rhyme with prow

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about prow

What does prow mean?
Prow means the front part of a vessel.
What is prow in Tagalog?
Prow in Tagalog is duong, doong. See Prow meaning in Tagalog.
What part of speech is prow?
Prow can be a noun, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce prow?
Prow is pronounced /pɹaʊ/ (UK).
What is the plural of prow?
The plural of prow is prows.

Words near prow in the dictionary

  1. provostships
  2. provosty
  3. provulgate
  4. provulgation
  5. provulge
  6. prow
  7. prowar
  8. prowd
  9. prowde
  10. prowdly
  11. prowed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: prow (page history and authors); Prow (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-prow.wav.

Cite this entry: “prow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/prow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.