a. and sb. Forms: 1 calu, caluw, calo, 3 caluȝ, 4 calu, calouh, calewe, calouwe, 6 kallowe, 6– callow. [OE. calu (def. calw-e):—WGer. kalwo-, whence also MLG. kale, MDu. cāle (calu, gen. caluwes), OHG. chalo (def. chalwe, chalawe), MHG. kal (kalwe), Ger. kahl, by Kluge thought to be cognate with Lith. gŏlŭ naked, blank; but not improbably an adoption of L. calv-us bald. Cf. Ir. and Gael. calbh bald.]
A. adj. † 1. Bald, without hair. Obs.
a. 1000. Prov. (Kemble), 42 (Bosw.). Moniʓ man weorþ færlice caluw.
a. 1000. Riddles, xli. 99 (Gr.). Ic eom wide calu.
c. 1375. Cato Major, II. xxix. Þat forehed is lodly Þat is calouh & bare.
1388. Wyclif, Lev. xiii. 40. A man of whos heed heeris fleten awei, is calu [1382 ballid].
a. 1689. Mrs. Behn, Widdow Ranter, IV. iii. (1690), 44. Were she an Angel, that can prefer such a callow Fop as thou before a man.
2. Of birds: Unfledged, without feathers.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 63. Yoong callow birds which are not yet fethered and fledg’d.
1728. Thomson, Spring, 667. The callow young … Their brittle bondage break.
1801. Southey, Thalaba, V. iii. Poems IV. 180. Her young in the refreshing bath, Dipt down their callow heads.
1822. Hazlitt, Table-t., II. xiv. 329. The callow brood are fledged.
c. Applied to the down of unfledged birds; and so, to the down on a youth’s cheek and chin.
1604. Drayton, Owle, 245. His soft and callow downe.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Past., VIII. 57. The callow Down began to cloath my Chin.
1735. Somerville, Chase, II. 457. Prove … their Valour’s Growth Mature, e’er yet the callow Down has spread Its curling Shade.
3. fig. Inexperienced, raw, ‘unfledged.’
1580. G. Harvey, in Spenser’s Wks. (Grosart), I. 40. Some, that weene themselves as fledged as the reste, being … as kallowe.
1651. Cleveland, Poems, 31. Blasphemy unfledg’d, a callow curse.
a. 1797. H. Walpole, Mem. Geo. II. (1847), I. xii. 410. Teaching young and callow orators to soar.
1823. Lamb, Elia, Ser. II. xvii. (1865), 343. The first callow flights in authorship.
1849. C. Brontë, Shirley, xxxiii. 474. In all the voluptuous ease of a yet callow pacha.
4. Of land: a. Bare; b. (Ireland.) Low-lying and liable to be submerged.
1677. Plot, Oxfordsh., 243. When these Lands are not swardy enough to bear clean tillage, nor callow or light enough to lie to get sward.
1878. Lever, J. Hinton, xx. 138. Broad tracts of bog or callow meadow-land.
1882. Science-Gossip, March, 51. If a callow meadow is flooded all the winter.
5. Comb. † callow-mouse, a bat.
1340. Ayenb., 27. Þe enuious ne may ysy þet guod of oþren nanmore þanne þe oule oþer þe calouwe mous þe briȝtnesse of þe zonne.
B. sb.
† 1. One who is bald; a bald-pate. Obs.
c. 1305. Life St. Dunstan, 89, in E. E. P. (1862), 37. Out, what haþ þe calewe [St. Dunstan] ido: what haþ þe calewe ido.
† 2. A callow nestling; fig. a raw youth. Obs.
a. 1667. Jer. Taylor, Serm. (1678), 310. Such a person … deplumes himself to feather all the naked Callows that he sees.
3. The stratum of vegetable soil lying above the subsoil; the top or rubble bed of a quarry, which has to be removed to reach the rock. dial.
1863. Morton, Cycl. Agric., II. Gloss. (E. D. S.), Callow (Norf., Suff.), the soil covering the subsoil.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, I. 673. Callow, the top or rubble bed of a quarry. This is obliged to be removed before the useful material is raised.
4. A low-lying damp meadow by the banks of an Irish river.
1862. H. Coulter, West of Ireland, 8. The extensive Callows lying along the banks of the Suck.
1865. Gard. Chron. & Agric. Gaz., 15 July, 663/2. The callows consist of low flat land near a river, and liable to be overflowed, as well as being always in a damp state in the driest seasons.
1883. Dundee Advert., 25 Aug., 6/1. All the callows on the banks [of the Shannon] to Lusmagh … are submerged.
Hence Callowness, Callowy a.
1855. De Quincey, in ‘H. A. Page,’ Life (1877), II. xviii. 90. Such advantage … as belongs to callowness or freshness.
1823. Monthly Mag., LV. 240. Like to a bird, who bestows on her callowy nestlings the morsel.
