tow
/toʊ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.72 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Near-synonyms: draw, haul, pull, trail"
- "In its current specification it cannot be driven and must be towed to its work location by a locomotive."
- "It isn't the car's battery; I think I need a tow."
- "On Saturday, Vettel was very unhappy with Leclerc's failure to work out a way through the traffic and give him a tow for the second runs in qualifying, as had been agreed."
- "And the strong shall be as towe, and the maker of it as a sparke, and they shall both burne together, and none shall quench them."
- "Meanwhile the farmer's wife was at home all alone, and while she was sitting and spinning her tow, she never noticed a Troll who had crept through the window into the next room, and was at the beer barrel drawing off the liquor into his copper kettle."
Etymology
From Middle English towen, from Old English togian (“to tow”), from Proto-West Germanic *togōn, from Proto-Germanic *tugōną (“to draw, pull”), from Proto-Indo-European *dewk- (“to draw, pull; to lead”). Cognates Cognate with German zögern (“to hesitate, pause”), Faroese and Icelandic toga (“to pull”), French touer (“to tow, tug a ship”); also Welsh dwyn (“to steal; to take; to bring to”), Latin dūcō (“to conduct, guide, lead; to take; to draw, pull; to consider, think; to prolong; to march; to forge”), Ancient Greek δαδύσσομαι (dadússomai, “to be distracted”), Albanian nduk (“to pluck out, pull out, tear”), Central Kurdish دۆشین (doşîn, “to milk”), Northern Kurdish dotin, doşîn, دۆشین (doşîn, “to milk”), Ossetian ду́цын (dúcyn, “to milk”), Pashto لوشل (lwašal, “to milk; to extort”), Persian دوشیدن (dōšīdan / dušidan), دوشتن (duštan), دوختن (dōxtan / duxtan, “to milk”). Related to tug.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /toʊ/
- British English: /təʊ/