different between alow vs ablow

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /??l??/

Etymology 1

From Middle English aloue, equivalent to a- +? low.

Adverb

alow (not comparable)

1. (now chiefly Scotland) Low down. [from 14th c.]
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, VI.8:

     Sometimes aloft he layd, sometimes alow, / Now here, now there, and oft him neare he mist […].

2. (nautical) Towards the lower part of a vessel; towards the lower rigging or the decks. [from 16th c.]
   • 1924, Herman Melville, Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co., Chapter 26, [1]

     Ay, Ay, Ay, all is up; and I must up too / Early in the morning, aloft from alow.

Preposition

alow

1. (Scotland) Below.

See also

• aloft

Etymology 2

a- +? low, from low (“flame”).

Adjective

alow (not comparable)

1. (Scotland) alight; ablaze

Anagrams

• AWOL, awol

English

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /??blo?/

Etymology 1

From a- +? blow.

Adjective

ablow (not comparable)

1. (obsolete, postpositive) Blossoming, blooming, in blossom.
   • 1891, Lizette Woodworth Reese, “Hallowmas” (poem), in A Handful of Lavender,^[1] Houghton, Mifflin and Company, page 13:

     You know, the year's not always May —

     Oh, once the lilacs were ablow !

   • 1989, Stephen L. Swynn, Garden Wisdom: Or, from One Generation to Another,^[2] Ayer Publishing, ?ISBN, page 110:

     [...] against the green, yet, growing in tilled soil, grow stronger and taller than any daffodil can grow in turf : hundreds of them are ablow together, and the very robustness of their splendour [...]

2. (dated, postpositive) Blowing or being blown; windy.

Usage notes

• Like most adjectives formed from this sense of a-, ablow never serves as an attributive premodifier; one can say “the flowers were ablow”, “ablow, the flowers [...]”, and even “[...] the flowers ablow [...]”, but not *“[...] the ablow flowers”.

Etymology 2

a- +? blow (“alteration of below”)

Preposition

ablow

1. (Scotland) Below.

Anagrams

• blaow, wobla