adj
Meaning 1
Brittle; tender; crisp
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: dialectal
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
Standard Lemma guide
frow
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Pronunciation
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
-
/fɹaʊ/
-
Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
-
rhymes with -aʊ
-
UK: /fɹəʊ/
-
US: /fɹoʊ/
-
Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
-
rhymes with -əʊ
noun
Meaning 2
A woman; a wife, especially a Dutch or German one.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Examples
- 1846, Captain Butler, A Glimpse of the Frontier, and a Gallop through the Cape Colony, W. Harrison Ainsworth (editor), The New Monthly Magazine and Humorist, 1846, Part 2, page 466, [...] on our way we stopped at several houses, our companions having numerous acquaintances among the young frows, to flirt with after their ungainly fashion. Cape Dutch is not the language for love.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Meaning 3
A slovenly woman; a wench; a lusty woman.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Meaning 4
A big, fat woman; a slovenly, coarse, or untidy woman; a woman of low character.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Meaning 5
Alternative spelling of froe (“cleaving tool”).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: alt-of, alternative
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Etymology
From Middle English frow, frough, frogh, frouh, frouȝ (“brittle; tender; fickle; slack; loose”), cognate with Scots frooch, freuch (“dry and brittle”). Of obscure origin. Perhaps also related to Middle Dutch vro, vroo, Middle Low German vrô, German froh.
From Middle Dutch vrouwe (“lady”), from Old Dutch *frōwa, from Proto-West Germanic *frauwjā, from Proto-Germanic *frawjǭ (“lady, mistress”), from Proto-Indo-European *prōw- (“right; judge, master”). Cognate with Dutch vrouw (“woman, wife, lady, mistress”), Low German frouw, frauw (“woman, wife, lady”), German Frau (“woman, wife, lady”), Swedish fru, Icelandic freyja (“lady, mistress”, in compounds), Old English frōwe (“woman”), Old English frēa (“lord, master, husband”). Doublet of frau, vrou, and vrouw.