frow
A woman; a wife, especially a Dutch or German one.
Adjective
- Brittle; tender; crisp
- that which grows in gravel is subject to be frow, as they term it , and brittle - 1664, J[ohn] E[velyn], Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-trees and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesties Dominions. […], London: […]...
Origin
From Middle English frow, frough, frogh, frouh, frouȝ (“brittle; tender; fickle; slack; loose”), cognate with Scots frooch, freuch (“dry and brittle”). Of obscure origin. Perhaps also related to Middle Dutch vro, vroo, Middle Low German vrô, German froh.
Forms
Derived
Noun Entry 2
- A woman; a wife, especially a Dutch or German one.
- Mrs. Frances, a Frow, Daughter to Vanlock - c. 1622, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger [et al.?], “Beggars Bush”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published...
- 1846, Captain Butler, A Glimpse of the Frontier, and a Gallop through the Cape Colony, W. Harrison Ainsworth (editor), The New Monthly Magazine and Humorist, 1846, Part 2, page 466, […] on our way we stopped at several...
- A slovenly woman; a wench; a lusty woman.
- A big, fat woman; a slovenly, coarse, or untidy woman; a woman of low character.
Origin
From Middle Dutch vrouwe (“lady”), from Old Dutch *frōwa, from Proto-West Germanic *frauwjā, from Proto-Germanic *frawjǭ (“lady, mistress”), from Proto-Indo-European *prōw- (“right; judge, master”). Cognate with Dutch vrouw (“woman, wife, lady, mistress”), Low German frouw, frauw (“woman, wife, lady”), German Frau (“woman, wife, lady”), Swedish fru, Icelandic freyja (“lady, mistress”, in compounds), Old English frōwe (“woman”), Old English frēa (“lord, master, husband”). Doublet of frau, vrou, and vrouw.
Forms
Noun alt of, alternative
- Alternative spelling of froe (“cleaving tool”).