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Kowtow   /kˈaʊtˈaʊ/  /kˈoʊtˈoʊ/   Listen
verb
Kotow  v. i.  (past & past part. kotowed; pres. part. kotowing)  
1.
To perform the kotow. Now usually spelled kowtow. (Also spelled kowtow)
2.
To defer to another in a servile or humiliating manner; to act obsequiously.


Kowtow  v. i.  (past & past part. kowtowed; pres. part. kowtowing)  
1.
To perform the kowtow. Same as Kotow "I have salaamed and kowtowed to him."
2.
To defer to another in a servile or humiliating manner; to act obsequiously.
Synonyms: kotow.


noun
Kotow  n.  (Also spelled kowtow)  Same as kowtow, the more common spellings. (China)


Kowtow  n.  (Also spelled kotow)  The prostration made by mandarins and others to their superiors, either as homage or worship, by knocking the forehead on the ground; same as Kotow. There are degrees in the rite, the highest being expressed by three knockings. (China)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Kowtow" Quotes from Famous Books



... to Lena, "I am inexperienced in the arts of love. I am too proud to kowtow to the berobed and bodiced idol. A woman is a woman, and a man is a man. They delude themselves and each other, or try to, into believing that each woman is a special person, and each man a man ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... this actor made him human. You see, Mr. Daly, most Evelyns are like a bottle of gas-charged water: forcibly restrained for a time, then there's a pop and a bang, and in wild freedom the water is foaming thinly over everything in sight. This man didn't kowtow in the early acts, but was curt, cold, showing signs of rebellion more than once, and ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... not to laugh in his face is penance for my sins. A Dutchman, a bullet-headed clod from Bavaria, the land of sausage, beer, and daschunds; and this shall be written Napoleon IV! Ye gods, what farce, comedy, vaudeville! But, there was always that hope: if he found the money he would divide it. So, kowtow, kowtow! Opera bouffe!" ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath


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