pronunciation: bow [depending on meaning] (2025)

Hello,
When bow means:

1 bow (weapon, bow and arrow) is it pronounced /bou/?
2 bow (front part of ship) is it pronounced /bau/?
3 bow (verb, incline your head and torso to show respect) pronounced /bou/?

Thank you.

Yes, you can see this in the dictionary.
bow - WordReference.com Dictionary of English

bow1 /baʊ/
...
bow2 /boʊ/
...
bow3 /baʊ/
...

Click to expand...

It doesn't say that in that definition.

bow 2 /boʊ/
n.
[countable]
a strong, flexible strip of wood or other material, bent by a string stretched between its ends and used for shooting arrows:

The dictionary pronunciations in the Random House

section are correct. That's at the top of the page. Those in the Random House

section, in the middle of the page, are misleading, as they seem to be using a different phonetic alphabet, which uses "ou" to represent the /au/ sound. The Collins pronunciations, further down still, are also correct.

The respectful leaning is pronounced the same as the front of a ship, with /a/. The weapon is pronounced with /o/.

You have to be careful not to mix pronunciation notations. There are two that are commonly used in U.S. dictionaries. IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is used by some, but there is a long-standing history of using a traditional one that has no connection to the IPA. When you see slashes, /boʊ/, that's an indication that it is IPA. You'll also see symbols that aren't standard letters. This, ʊ, and this, u, are not the same.

Below are the pronunciations of those words in the other notation. Notice there are no slashes and it uses standard letters, sometimes with an extra symbol added. You can't use IPA rules with that system. They aren't related.

(bō) -> used with an arrow, tied on a gift
(bou) -> bend low, front of a ship

I don't think the parentheses are even part of the system. They are just added in the dictionary to indicate it's a pronunciation note, not part of the word or definition.

For the benefit of those, like me, who don't use phonetic symbols,

the bow with an arrow and tied on a gift rhymes with go, and the other rhymes with cow.

Even more than that. Both of those are IPA symbols as you are using them.

The other system is not IPA. Letters are assigned pronunciations in a different way. ʊ does not exist in that system. That notation system only uses standard letter forms and the schwa symbol , ə, as far as I know. One reason IPA is used for English is because there are more distinct sounds in English than there are distinct letters. IPA deals with that by inventing new symbols, one for each sound. The traditional notation deals with that by adding special symbols to the standard letters when necessary to indicate different sounds.

bō -> the line over the o indicates it's a "long o" in the traditional naming system, meaning the sound has the same sound as the name of the letter, meaning it rhymes with go, so, and no.

bop -> there is no symbol over the o so it is pronounced as a "short o". It is the same o sound as in cop, not and spot.

Apparently the 'ou' notation indicates the sound that those two letters make in words like "out" and "sound". It's very confusing, especially since they don't make that sound in words like "could" and "should", not to mention "cough", "rough", or "shoulder".

(cross-edited)

Edinburgher said:

Apparently the 'ou' notation indicates the sound that those two letters make in words like "out" and "sound". It's very confusing, especially since they don't make that sound in words like "could" and "should", or even "shoulder".

Click to expand...

"(ou)" = the dictionary's pronunciation symbols not letters just like "/squiggle1sqiggle2/" = IPA symbols not letters.

Think of out, ouch, oust.

You would say "ou as in out", not "ou as in could". That would be "c as in could".

Oh, so you want the example words to

with the letters, do you?
Like "ought" and "ouzel"?

It's better, if not perfect.

The true answer, of course, is it means whatever is defined in that notation system.

Many of those IPA symbols don't "mean" anything either until someone tells you what they mean. They're just crazy made-up symbols. Any notation system, by definition, is created to represent longer things with shorter things. The shorter things usually need an explanation for full understanding.

Yes, I never encountered IPA in school. But then, we rarely if ever discussed pronunciation there because you learn how to pronounce things at home from everyday conversation since age 2. They don't teach you that at school except for some long, difficult words. And that is mostly figuring out which syllables are stressed. And that's mostly done by saying the words after someone says them the right way. You don't write them or read them to learn pronunciation.

Most of the regular words in the dictionary probably don't even need a pronunciation guide for native speakers. They know all that already. It's the occasional, somewhat uncommon word you might look up to check the pronunciation. And in that situation, the traditional notation does the job. If I want to know whether the e in syncope is silent or pronounced, this tells me just fine: sing′kə pē′ It is pronounced and it's a long e. (I don't even care about the rest of the word. That part is obvious.)