noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The act of one who kowtows; a submissive bow.

   "Yoritomo met their smiles and kowtowings and noisy insuckings of breath with an austere dignity that I took pains to imitate."

Verb

1. 1
   present participle and gerund of kowtow form-of, gerund, participle, present

Synonyms

All synonyms

fawninggrovelinggrovellingparasiticprostrationsycophant

Example

More examples

"Latinos can't promote themselves gracefully, kowtowing to others!"

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