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Kowtow   /kˈaʊtˈaʊ/  /kˈoʊtˈoʊ/   Listen
Kowtow

verb
(past & past part. kowtowed; pres. part. kowtowing)
1.
Bend the knees and bow in a servile manner.  Synonyms: genuflect, scrape.
2.
Try to gain favor by cringing or flattering.  Synonyms: bootlick, fawn, kotow, suck up, toady, truckle.
noun
(Also spelled kotow)
1.
A former Chinese custom of touching the ground with the forehead as a sign of respect or submission.  Synonym: kotow.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Kowtow" Quotes from Famous Books



... 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

... it ought not to go further just yet. I'd enjoy," said he, "just such work as yours. There's none finer. You'd like me immensely as your royal master, I suppose? Want nothing better than to curtsy and kowtow when I flung out a gracious order?—as, for instance, to shut up shop and go and ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... 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



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