Kowtow

Quick meaning: Kowtow is a verb meaning (figuratively) To grovel, act in a very submissive manner; to show obeisance to (someone or something) in such a manner; to bow.

Meaning

(figuratively) To grovel, act in a very submissive manner; to show obeisance to (someone or something) in such a manner; to bow.

More Meanings

1. To bow very deeply.
2. The act of kowtowing.
3. (historical) To kneel and bow low enough to touch one’s forehead to the ground.

Example Sentences

I suppose you're going to be nice to Odie and kowtow to Jon and lick the mailman's boots! I don't like you already.

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

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.

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.”

Word Forms

• kowtows
• kowtowing
• kowtowed
• kow-tow

Synonyms for kowtow

Depending on context, synonyms include dogeza, scrape, toady, genuflect, bootlick, truckle.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include kotow, genuflect, scrape, bootlick, toady, suck up.

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