Chow
AI In plain words
Writing a short explanation…
Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
chow¹
- /t͡ʃaʊ/ UK
Sounds like ciao · Rhymes with -aʊ
Where it comes from
Shortened from chow-chow, from Chinese Pidgin English chow-chow. Compare Macanese chau-cháu. See also English chow fun, chow mein, etc.
noun chows
- Food, especially snacks. I'm going to pick up some chow for dinner.
- Unripe, or partially ripened, fruit seasoned and served as a dish, e.g. pineapple chow or mango chow.
- A Chow Chow. ‘I'd try and grapple with him myself, only I've got my chow in my room, you know, and he goes for pigs wherever he finds them.’
- A Chinese person. These were the creatures Nawnim had been amazed to see about him on the day of his arrival. When he inquired about them, Anna told him they were Japs an' Chows.
verb chows · chowing · chowed
- To eat.
chow²
- /t͡ʃaʊ/ UK
Sounds like ciao · Rhymes with -aʊ
Where it comes from
Borrowed from Chinese 州 (zhōu).
noun chows
- A prefecture or district of the second rank in China, or the chief city of such a district.
chow³
- /t͡ʃaʊ/ UK
Sounds like ciao · Rhymes with -aʊ
Where it comes from
Phono-semantic matching of Chinese 吃 (chī, literally “to eat”), influenced by the “food” sense of Etymology 1 above.
noun chows
- A run of three consecutive tiles of the same suit.
- A call for forming such a run using a discarded tile.
verb chows · chowing · chowed
- To call a discarded tile to produce a chow. […] while the adversary on his right will repeatedly bury in the discard the very tiles he wishes to chow but can't.
Chow⁴
- /t͡ʃaʊ/
Sounds like ciao, chow · Rhymes with -aʊ
Where it comes from
From Cantonese 周 (zau¹).
proper noun
- A surname from Cantonese.
- Alternative form of Zhou (“dynasty, realm, and era”).Zhou
noun Chows
- A Chow Chow (Chinese breed of dog). Colin was a Chow; an interesting Chinese breed that looks a bit like a Pomeranian on steroids[.]
