bow down

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /baʊ ˈdaʊn/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Verb

bow down (third-person singular simple present bows down, present participle bowing down, simple past and past participle bowed down)

1. (intransitive, idiomatic) To bow, to bend oneself as a gesture of deference or respect.
   • c. 1921 (date written), Karel Čapek, translated by Paul Selver, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots): A Fantastic Melodrama […], Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1923, →OCLC, Act 2:

     You were all so powerful, so overwhelming. The whole world bowed down before you.

   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Citadel:

     Shepard: The rest of the galaxy isn't just going to bow down just because we tell them to. We'll need the fleets to bring them in line.

2. (intransitive, slang, African-American Vernacular) To submit to another; to acknowledge one's inferiority to another.

   You better bow down to my skills.

Derived terms

• bow down before the porcelain god
• bowed-down

Translations

to bend oneself as a gesture of respect or deference

• Armenian: խոնարհվել (hy) (xonarhvel)
• Finnish: kumartaa (fi)
• French: s’incliner (fr)
• German: sich niederwerfen (de)
• Gothic: 𐌰𐌽𐌰𐌷𐌽𐌴𐌹𐍅𐌰𐌽 (anahneiwan)
• Greek:

  Ancient: προσκυνέω (proskunéō)

• Marathi: पाया पडणे (pāyā paḍṇe)
• Old English: ġebūgan
• Tyap: beak (kcg)

Anagrams

• down bow, downbow