pow

Onomatopoeic.

• IPA^(key): /paʊ/
  • (General Australian) IPA^(key): [pəʉ]

    • Audio (General Australian):

      (file)

• Rhymes: -aʊ

pow

1. The sound of a violent impact, such as a punch.
   • 1989 June 5, The Canberra Times, Australia Captial Territory, page 10, column 2:

     Whap, Biff, Ooooof, Sock, Pow, Zok! Batman is back. Gotham City is again leaving its law and order in the hands of a man who wears plastic underpants over his tights.

2. The sound of an explosion.
   • 1982, Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything, page 71:

     Pow, they took off.

pow (plural pows)

1. The sound of a violent impact.
2. The sound of an explosion.

Variant forms.

pow (plural pows)

1. (Scotland, Ireland, Northern England) Alternative form of poll
   • 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 24:

     he'd snuffle round the door till the few remaining hairs on the bald pow of Munro would fair rise on end.

2. (skiing slang) Clipping of powder (“powder snow”).

• WOP, wop, PWO, Wop, OPW

From Latin pāgus. Cognate with Welsh pau

pow m (plural powyow)

1. country, land
2. province, region

From Middle English pol, polle ("scalp, pate"). Cognate with English poll ("scalp").

• IPA^(key): /pʌu/

pow (plural pows)

1. head (of a human, animal, flower etc.)

   Three times the carline grain'd and rifted, / Then frae the cod her pow she lifted. Three times the old woman groaned and belched, then from the pillow her head she lifted. (Allan Ramsay, ‘Lucky Spence's Last Advice’)