bow down

• IPA^(key): /baʊ ˈdaʊn/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

bow down (third-person singular simple present bows down, present participle bowing down, simple past and past participle bowed down)

1. (intransitive, idiomatic) To bow, to bend oneself as a gesture of deference or respect.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Deuteronomy 5:8–10:

     8 Thou shalt not make thee any grauen image, or any likenesse of any thing that is in heauen aboue, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth.
     9 Thou shalt not bow downe thy selfe vnto them, nor serue them: for I the Lord thy God am a ielous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers vpon the children, vnto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me,
     10 And shewing mercy vnto thousands, of them that loue me, and keepe my commandements.

   • c. 1921 (date written), Karel Čapek, translated by Paul Selver, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots): A Fantastic Melodrama […], Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1923, →OCLC, Act 2:

     You were all so powerful, so overwhelming. The whole world bowed down before you.

   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Citadel:

     Shepard: The rest of the galaxy isn't just going to bow down just because we tell them to. We'll need the fleets to bring them in line.

2. (intransitive, slang, African-American Vernacular) To submit to another; to acknowledge one's inferiority to another.

   You better bow down to my skills.

• bow down before the porcelain god
• bowed-down

• down bow, downbow