Word.ws English Dictionary

sowan

/ˈsəʊ.ən/

sowan is the alternative form of sowens.

Meaning of sowens

Noun

sowens pl (plural only)

  1. (Scotland, plural, plural-only) A food item made using the starch remaining on the inner husks of oats after milling
    • It was sowens she had in her hand for our supper, when a little old woman walked in and begged a lippie of meal of her.1860, Thomas Pattieson, “The Smith and the Fairies”, in J[ohn] F[rancis] Campbell, transl., Popular Tales of the West Highlands: Orally Collected: With a Translation, volume II, Edinburgh: Edmonston...
    Synonyms:
    flummery

Adverb

sowan

  1. (England, dialectal) Very, extremely.
    • It's a sowan girt spot is Manchester.1889 March 23, Kendal and County News, quoted in the EDD
    • […] tha led aald Dixon a sowan terbel time. She war a bonny lass war Dixon lass, en she'd a faace like a posy, en thoo nivver sah sic a bit a pink en white i' thi life; her cheeks war es nice er nicer ner enny pickter, en when she[…]1950 [1882?], A Lafter O' Farleys in T' Dialects O' Lakeland, 1760-1945

Questions about sowan

What does sowan mean?
Sowan means very, extremely.
What is sowan the alternative form of?
Sowan is the alternative form of sowens.
What part of speech is sowan?
Sowan is an adverb.
How do you pronounce sowan?
Sowan is pronounced /ˈsəʊ.ən/.

Words near sowan in the dictionary

  1. Sowa
  2. Sowa-Rigpa
  3. sowability
  4. sowable
  5. Sowams
  6. sowan
  7. sowans
  8. sowar
  9. Soward
  10. Sowards
  11. sowarree

Source and license

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