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bow-wow

British  
/ ˈbaʊˌwaʊ, -ˈwaʊ /

noun

  1. a child's word for dog

  2. an imitation of the bark of a dog

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

verb

  1. (intr) to bark or imitate a dog's bark

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

So I read “Golden Retrievals” by Mark Doty: “A Zen master’s bronzy gong, calls you here,/ entirely, now: bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow.”

From New York Times Apr. 6, 2021

They also nod to a recent theory about the origin of language in animal sounds that Carroll's friend, the philologist Max Müller, scorned as 'the bow-wow theory':

From Nature Nov. 15, 2016

Bau — the name is from the Italian equivalent of the sound of a dog’s bark, as in bow-wow — is the eighth dog she has trained.

From New York Times Apr. 21, 2011

Dogs and their people work hard from morning to night, but they can also pursue less serious interests like painting lessons for the bow-wow set, games of musical chairs and an all-pooch band.

From Time Magazine Archive

The bottle of bow-wow wine was probably long dry.

From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand

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