Obs. exc. techn. Forms: 6–8 stowe, 7 stough, 7– stow. [Variant of STOVE sb.1]
† 1. In various senses of STOVE sb.1: A hot-air bath; a heated room or chamber; a hothouse for plants; a closed fireplace. Obs.
In quot. 1599 the spelling stowis is prob. merely an example of the writing of w for v in Sc., and has no phonetic significance.
[1599. Sc. Acts Jas. VI. (1816), IV. 187/2. Fewall … is alreddie brocht to ane grit decay within the boundis of þis realme by the excessiue spending … þairof for laik of the formes of killis, stowis, and furnessis eftermentionate.]
1614. Markham, Cheap & Good Husb., II. i. 114. To set Hens in the winter time in stowes or ouens is of no vse with vs in england.
1627. Hakewill, Apol. (1630), 399. They could neither eate nor drinke vnlesse they had first bathed or had sweat in a stough.
1652–62. Heylin, Cosmogr., I. (1682), 145. To keep the heat of their Stows from going out, or any cold from coming in.
1655. Hartlib, Ref. Silk-worm, 30. Iohn Tradeskin…, by the advantage of putting his Trees, and other Plants into a warm house in winter or a stow, nurses up those things faire and fragrant, which would without that help either dye or be dwarft.
1713. Petiver, in Phil. Trans., XXVIII. 218. The Dutchess of Beaufort shewed me this [plant] in her Stows at Badmington.
1721. Mortimer, Husb., II. 267. Commit them early to their shelter, where they may intirely be preserv’d from the Frost; you may give them a gentle Stow, and attemper the Air with a Fire of Charcoal during the extream rigour of the Winter.
1730. Inventory D. Bond’s Goods (1732), 18. A small Stow and Fender.
1731. Inventory T. Warren’s Goods (1732), 32. One Cupboard, 2 Stowes.
2. Tin-plate making. (See quot. 1875.)
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 1253. A range of rectangular cast-iron pots is set over a fire-flue in an apartment called the stow.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2413. Stow, a raised structure containing the furnace and set of pots used in the manufacture of tin-plate.
