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spow

/spaʊ/

verb

An imaginary action resembling the headcarrying of a teapot, used in the Wug Test to investigate the acquisition of the past participle form in English-speaking children.

“this is a man who knows how to spow”

Scrabble 9

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Meanings

verbspow (third-person singular simple present spows, present participle spowing, simple past and past participle spowed)

present singular third person spows · participle present spowing · participle past spowed · past spowed

human sciencesAn imaginary action resembling the headcarrying of a teapot, used in the Wug Test to investigate the acquisition of the past participle form in English-speaking children.
this is a man who knows how to spow

Origin

Pseudoword, coined ex nihilo by American psycholinguist Jean Berko Gleason in the 1950s as a word that children taking the test would not have heard before. Probably influenced by spout

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with spow

our now how low allow row thou bow somehow ciao dow palau Macau Lao tao tau gao pow ow chow frau mao anyhow slough

Anagrams

Cite this entry

APA

spow. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/spow

MLA

“spow.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/spow. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “spow,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/spow.

Source: spow on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.