Forms: 1 hlówan, 3 lhouen, 4 lo(o)wen, louwen, 5 lawe, loe, lowyn, 6 lo(o)we, 7 lough, lowgh, 4– low. [A Com. Teut. reduplicating str. vb. (preserved as such only in OE.; elsewhere conjugated weak); OE. hlówan, pa. t. hléow = ODu. (OLFrankish) hluoien (MDu. loeyen, Du. loeien), OHG. hluojen (MHG. lüejen), ? ON. hlóa (once, with sense ‘to roar’); f. Teut. root *hlô-:—W. Aryan *klā-; cf. L. clāmāre to shout, Gr. κικλήσκειν to call.]
1. intr. Of cattle: To utter their characteristic sound (in recent use apprehended as denoting a more subdued sound than bellow); to moo.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Gram., xxii. (Z.), 129. Bos mugit, oxa hlewð.
c. 1240. Anc. Songs (Ritson), 4. Awe bleteþ after lomb lhouþ after calue cu.
13[?]. Poem times Edw. II., 183, in Pol. Songs (Camden), 332. Hit nis noht al for the calf that kow louweth.
1382. Wyclif, Job vi. 5. Whethir … an oxe shul loowen, whan befor the fulle cracche he shal stonde?
a. 1400–50. Alexander, 4744. Vmquile he noys … as a nox quen he lawes.
1432–50. trans. Higden (Rolls), III. 27. Oon of the calfes of golde that Iheroboam made loede scharpely in the natiuite of Heliseus.
1560. Bible (Genev.), Job vi. 5. Doeth the wilde asse braye when he hathe grasse? or loweth the oxe when he hathe foddre?
1611. Bible, Ibid. Doeth the wilde asse bray when he hath grasse? or loweth the oxe ouer his fodder?
1647. Ward, Simp. Cobler, 84. Should I heare … a Cat lowgh like an Oxe,… it would scare mee.
1770. Goldsm., Des. Vill., 118. The sober herd that lowed to meet their young.
1805. Wordsw., Prelude, 208. The heifer lows, uneasy at the voice Of a new master.
1820. Shelley, Hymn to Mercury, xix. 7. Hermes dragged forth two heifers, lowing loud.
1897. trans. Nansen’s Farthest North, II. ix. 452. We … could hear them [walruses] … lowing like cows.
2. transf. To make a loud noise, to bellow, howl. Of a cavern: To reverberate with a noise.
a. 1000. Elene, 54 (Gr.). Hleowon hornboran, hreopan friccan.
1382. Wyclif, Jer. li. 52. In al his lond loowen shal the woundid.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, III. x. 36. How cavernis or furnys of Ethna round Rummist and lowit.
a. 1661. Holyday, Juvenal, 22. No she-priest here lows in a horn.
3. trans. To utter in a voice like that of cattle; to bellow forth.
a. 1547. Surrey, Æneid, II. 281. Like to the sound the roring bull fourth loowes.
1633. J. Fisher, Fuimus Troes, IV. i. G j b. Which Caucasus may as a Catch repeate, And Taurus lough the same.
1644. Sir E. Dering, Prop. Sacr., ciii. Others do lough forth the tenour.
1871. G. Meredith, H. Richmond, xxxviii. ‘Oh I thank you!’ I heard the garlanded victim lowing.
1876. ‘Annie Thomas,’ Blotted out, iii. 27, I shudder under the conviction that she is going to low reproof at me, and so she does.
