What does "kow-tow" mean?

Alternative spelling of kowtow.

What is a synonym for "kow-tow"?

Common synonyms include: fawn, scrape, apple-polish, bend, bend the knee, bend the neck.

Kow-tow

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb

1
Alternative spelling of kowtow. alt-of, alternative
"Prince Chun, who even in Europe would not kow-tow to a European or allow his attendants to kow-tow, will be, we may rest assured, a hero in Chinese eyes."

Synonyms

All synonyms

fawn scrape apple-polish bend bend the knee bend the neck

Example

More examples

"Prince Chun, who even in Europe would not kow-tow to a European or allow his attendants to kow-tow, will be, we may rest assured, a hero in Chinese eyes."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.