[f. vbl. phrase stow away: see STOW v.1 6.] A person who hides in a ship in order to escape payment of passage-money, to get to sea unobserved, or to escape by stealth from a country.
1854. Ann. Reg., 19. He had been seized as a ‘stow-away.’
1885. American, XI. 78/2. The distress is so great [in Glasgow] that recently forty-seven stowaways were found in the hold of one vessel which was about to sail for America.
