different between kotow vs kowtow

English

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /?ko??ta?/

Noun

kotow (plural kotows)

1. Alternative spelling of kowtow

Verb

kotow (third-person singular simple present kotows, present participle kotowing, simple past and past participle kotowed)

1. Alternative spelling of kowtow

Lower Sorbian

Noun

kotow

1. Superseded spelling of kótow.

English

Alternative forms

• kotoo (obsolete)
• kotow

Etymology

From Sinitic ????? (Cantonese kau3 tau4, Mandarin kòutóu), literally "knock head".

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ka??ta?/
• Rhymes: -a?

Verb

kowtow (third-person singular simple present kowtows, present participle kowtowing, simple past and past participle kowtowed)

1. (intransitive, figuratively) To grovel, act in a very submissive manner.
   • 2015, Oleg V. Khlevniuk, Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator, Yale University Press (?ISBN), page 265

     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.”

2. (intransitive, historical) To kneel and bow low enough to touch one’s forehead to the ground.
   • 2013, Wendy Swartz, Robert Ford Campany, Yang Lu, Jessey J. C. Choo, Early Medieval China: A Sourcebook, Columbia University Press (?ISBN), page 645

     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.

3. (intransitive) To bow very deeply.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Derived terms

• kowtower
• kowtowing

Translations

Noun

kowtow (plural kowtows)

1. The act of kowtowing.
   • 1990, Hugh D. R. Baker, Hong Kong Images: People and Animals, Hong Kong University Press (?ISBN), page 93

     Three elders dressed in their long silk ceremonial gowns perform the kowtow before the altar in their clan ancestral hall.

Translations

See also

• prostrate

Portuguese

Noun

kowtow m (plural kowtows)

1. kowtow (bow low enough to touch one’s forehead to the ground)