Meaning
To kneel and touch the forehead to the ground as an act of reverence or submission - the literal historical sense - but in modern English almost always figurative: to obey or defer to someone obsequiously, especially a more powerful person, government, or market. The figurative use is dismissive and often accusatory, a sharpened political sense absent from the neutral Chinese original, which simply names the act of bowing. The figurative use is strongly negative, implying servile capitulation; the literal ritual sense now appears mainly in historical writing. Regional use: General English (borrowed from Cantonese Chinese).
Origin
From Chinese koutou (叩頭, also written 磕頭), literally 'knock head' - kou or ke 'to knock, bump' plus tou 'head' - with the English spelling reflecting the Cantonese pronunciation. The ritual, attested in China since at least the Warring States period, ranged from bows to elders and ancestors to the grand imperial kowtow of 'three kneelings and nine knockings' before the emperor. English adopted the noun in 1804, amid fraught diplomatic contact; stories that the Macartney embassy of 1793 collapsed over a refusal to kowtow are now questioned by historians working from primary sources. The verb appeared by 1826 already in the figurative sense 'to act obsequiously', showing how quickly English political usage detached the word from the physical ritual.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- kotow
- koutou
Usage Examples
- Officials repeatedly kowtowed to the chairman's demands rather than risk his temper.
- The verb 'kowtow' was already being used figuratively within two decades of the noun's arrival in English.
- He refused to kowtow to the critics and reissued the film uncut.