jow

jow

1. (international standards) ISO 639-3 language code for Jowulu.

• Wiktionary’s coverage of Jowulu terms

jow (uncountable)

1. Alternative form of jhow (“kind of tamarisk”).

jow (plural jows)

1. (historical) A pre-metric unit of length in India, equal to approximately a quarter of an inch

• gaou, gau, gow, jaob

Alteration of jowl (“to knock, strike, ring a bell”), with loss of final l.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /d͡ʒəʊ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /d͡ʒaʊ/

jow (third-person singular simple present jows, present participle jowing, simple past and past participle jowed)

1. (UK, dialectal, transitive) To knock, strike, bump.
2. (Scotland, transitive) To ring or toll (a bell).

jow

1. (India, obsolete, imperative) Go away; begone.
   • 1861, M. A. Wallace-Dunlop, ‎Rosalind Harriet Maria Wallace-Dunlop Inverarity, The Timely Retreat from India, Before the Mutinies (page 163)

     This is always the way in India: the servant assures you that what you require is not procurable […] you politely reply, "Jow" (go away), and in nine cases out of ten he will return with the desired article; […]

   • 1927, Alfred Claude Brown, The Ordinary Man's India, page 88:

     He angrily tells the crowd to jow (go away), and the nearest of them sheer off a few paces, […]

• John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary

Apparently from earlier *jowl, from Middle English chaulen, chavelen (“to jabber”). Compare jawl (“to talk loudly”).

jow (third-person singular simple present jows, present participle jowing, simple past and past participle jowed)

1. (UK, dialectal) To talk loudly.

jow

1. alternative form of Jew

jow (third-person singular simple present jows, present participle jowin, simple past jowt, past participle jowt)

1. (ambitransitive) To ring or toll (a bell).

jow (plural jows)

1. A stroke of a bell.