towed the line
towed the line is the simple past and past participle of tow the line.
Meaning of tow the line
Verb
tow the line (third-person singular simple present tows the line, present participle towing the line, simple past and past participle towed the line)
- Eggcorn of toe the line.
- Some metaphors now current have been twisted out of their original meaning without those who use them even being aware of the fact. For example, toe the line is sometimes written as tow the line.[1946 April, George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”, in Cyril Connolly, editor, Horizon, volume 13, number 76, London: Horizon, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 255
Questions about towed the line
- What is towed the line the simple past and past participle of?
- Towed the line is the simple past and past participle of tow the line.
Words near towed the line in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: towed the line (page history and authors); tow the line (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: “towed the line.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/towed_the_line. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.