kowtow

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Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈkaʊˌtaʊ/

Verb

kowtow (kowtows, present participle kowtowing; 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 9780300163889), 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 9780231531009), 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.

Translations

• French: se prosterner, s'agenouiller
• German: einen Kotau machen
• Portuguese: fazer o kowtow
• Russian: де́лать коуто́у
• Spanish: postrarse, prosternarse

Translations

• Portuguese: prostrar-se
• Russian: де́лать ни́зкий покло́н

Translations

• German: kriechen, kuschen, katzbuckeln, dienern, zu Kreuze kriechen, den Kotau machen
• Russian: преклоня́ться

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 9789622092556), page 93

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

Translations

• French: kowtow
• German: Kotau
• Portuguese: kowtow
• Russian: (indeclinable) коуто́у

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