Chow

How to spell chow

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce chow

What does chow mean?

1. nounInformal word for food or a meal.
2. verbTo eat, especially heartily or quickly (often followed by 'down').
3. nounA sturdy Chinese dog breed with a thick coat, curled tail, and blue-black tongue (also called a chow chow).

Chow in a sentence

• noun

  The soldiers lined up for chow at the mess hall.

• verb

  The kids would chow down their dinner before running back outside.

• noun

  The breeder specialised in raising a fluffy red chow with a distinctive blue tongue.

• noun

  After the long hike everyone was ready for some hot chow.

• verb

  We like to chow on snacks during the late shift.

• noun

  Their chow shed thick clumps of fur every spring.

Where does chow come from?

Language of origin: Chinese

This is one of those breezy little words that arrived in English through the kitchens and docks of the nineteenth century. It comes from Chinese Pidgin English, where 'chow-chow' meant a mixture of foods or a kind of mixed relish, and the term was reduced to plain 'chow' to mean simply food or a meal. The pidgin word is generally traced to Cantonese trade speech, possibly echoing a word for cooking or mixing, though the exact original Chinese form is uncertain. American military and naval slang seized on it eagerly in the early twentieth century, giving us the phrase 'chow line' for the queue at the mess hall and 'chow down' for tucking in. The same 'chow-chow' source also named the fluffy chow chow dog, an ancient Chinese breed whose name reached the West by the same trading routes. Because the word is purely phonetic, its spelling is mercifully simple, even if its origins are murky.

How the word is built

• chow (single root, no affixes; from pidgin shortening of chow-chow)