In 6 walow. [f. WALLOW v.]
1. The act of wallowing or rolling in mud or filth; also fig. Also concr., the filth in which swine wallow.
a. 1591. H. Smith, Serm., Jacob’s Ladder (1601), 545. Let the dog turne to the vomit, and the swine to the walow.
1896. G. S. Ogilvie, Sin of St. Hulda, II. 40. Thou’st called me from the filthy byre of swine, The wallow of indulgence and gross deeds.
1898. Advance (Chicago), 3 March, 284/1. Poor wretches who are converted a dozen times in a winter only to return to their wallow and cups.
1913. Sir K. Clifford in Blackw. Mag., Oct., 479/2. After a heart-breaking attempt to cleanse the sweat of travel by a wallow in a mud-hole.
b. A mud-hole or dust-hole formed by the wallowing of a buffalo, elephant or rhinoceros.
1841. Catlin, N. Amer. Ind., xxxi. I. 249. ‘A bull in his wallow’ … has a very significant meaning with those who have ever seen a buffalo bull … endeavouring to cool his heated sides, by tumbling about in a mud puddle.
1882. Contemp. Rev., Aug., 229. The wallows are saucer-like depressions in the ground, made by the buffaloes rubbing themselves.
1900. Pollok & Thom, Sports Burma, v. 167. One rhinoceros may have two or three wallows, or mud-holes, which he visits in turn.
2. † a. A rolling walk or gait. Obs.
1676. Dryden, Etheredge’s Man of Mode, Epil. 22. His various Modes from various Fathers follow; One taught the Toss, and one the new French Wallow.
b. The roll or swell of the sea. poet.
1868. Morris, Earthly Par., I. Prol. 31. And much ado had we To ride unspilt the wallow of the sea.
3. dial. The line into which hay is raked before being carted or cocked.
1874. Jefferies, Toilers of Field (1892), 119. Twenty women … turning a ‘wallow,’ or shaking up the green swathes left by the mowers.
