stowaway
Americannoun
-
stowaways
plural
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of stowaway
First recorded in 1850–55; noun use of verb phrase stow away
Explanation
A person who hides on a vehicle to get a free ride is a stowaway. If your cat sneaks into the back seat of your car and travels to school with you, she's a stowaway too! The verb phrase stow away came first, meaning "conceal," from stow, or "stash." By the 1840s, stowaway was being used as a noun to mean "clandestine traveler." Anyone who sneaks onto a boat, plane, or train and hides out during the trip, stowing themselves someplace secluded, can be described as a stowaway.
Vocabulary lists containing stowaway
Impossible Creatures
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This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for April 27–May 3, 2024
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The First State of Being
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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:
It has helped give mezcal an air of mystery for decades, but scientists have now shown that this famous bottle stowaway is not a worm at all.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 26, 2026
The confused stowaway tried to hop away onto the freeway, but project overseer Robert Rock rescued the frog and released it at the top of the crossing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2025
After illegally emigrating to the United States as a shipboard stowaway, the Colonel adopted the name Tom Parker, eventually finding work as a promoter with a traveling carnival.
From Salon ● Aug. 8, 2025
A stowaway who allegedly flew from New York to Paris without a ticket last month has been arrested again for trying to escape by bus from the US to Canada.
From BBC ● Dec. 17, 2024
The feat surely made Richard Parker the largest stowaway, proportionally speaking, in the history of navigation.
From "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
The next morning, Mr Branscombe - armed with insect spray, gloves and other garden tools - checked it over and found no further stowaways.
From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2024
The man, Wicliff Yves Fleurizard, 26, faces one felony count of stowaways on vessels or aircraft, according to a complaint filed on Monday in U.S.
From New York Times ● Mar. 20, 2024
And unwanted species always come along with the wanted ones, for example as stowaways on ships.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 16, 2023
In some ways, ship stowaways are safer than those who cross parts of the Sahara on foot or the Mediterranean on rickety wooden boats.
From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2023
Everyone on the bus began filing off with their identity cards in hand, so the empty bus could be checked for weapons or stowaways.
From "Boots on the Ground: America's War in Vietnam" by Elizabeth Partridge
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
