bow-and-scrape
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
14 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "bow-and-scrape", 14-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "bow-and-scrape" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "bow-and-scrape" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
bow and scrape is aEnglishverb. It means: To make a deep bow with the right leg drawn back (thus scraping the floor), left hand pressed across the abdomen, right arm held aside. Pronounced /ˌbaʊ ən ˈskɹeɪp/.
Compare similar words
See how bow and scrape compares against similar English words.
Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bow and scrape |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˌbaʊ ən ˈskɹeɪp/ |
| Letters | 14 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bow and scrape is 14 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˌbaʊ ən ˈskɹeɪp/. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for bow and scrape in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is bow and scrape, spelled B-O-W- -A-N-D- -S-C-R-A-P-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To make a deep bow with the right leg drawn back (thus scraping the floor), left hand pressed across the abdomen, right arm held aside.
- 2To behave in a servile, obsequious, or excessively polite manner.
This word in other languages
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "bow and scrape"?
What does "bow and scrape" mean?
How do you pronounce "bow and scrape"?
What language does "bow and scrape" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: