KOWTOW

Kowtow

Kowtow, which is borrowed from "kau tau" in Cantonese, or koutou in Mandarin Chinese, is the act of deep respect shown by prostration, that is, kneeling and bowing so low as to have one's head touching the ground. An alternative Chinese term is ketou, however the meaning is somewhat altered: kou has the general meaning of knock, whereas ke has the general meaning of "touch upon ", tou meaning head.

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kowtow

Noun

  1. The act of kowtowing.

Verb

  1. To kneel and bow low enough to touch one’s forehead to the ground.
  2. To bow very deeply.
  3. To act in a very submissive manner.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: kowtow
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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