different between stanch vs kowtow

English

Alternative forms

• staunch

Etymology

From Old French estanchier (“to stanch”), origin uncertain, possibly from Vulgar Latin *stantic? (“to stop”), from Latin st? (“stand”). Compare Spanish estancar. See also staunch.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /st??nt??/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /stænt??/
• Rhymes: -??nt?, -ænt?

Verb

stanch (third-person singular simple present stanches, present participle stanching, simple past and past participle stanched)

1. (transitive) To stop the flow of.

   A small amount of cotton can be stuffed into the nose to stanch the flow of blood if necessary.

   • Beijing devotes immense resources to restricting access for and stanching scrutiny from international groups and reporters.

2. (intransitive) To cease, as the flowing of blood.

   • Immediately her issue of blood stanched.

3. (transitive) To prop; to make stanch, or strong.
   • 1842, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Threnody

     His gathered sticks to stanch the wall / Of the snow tower when snow should fall.

4. To extinguish; to quench, as fire or thirst.

Translations

Noun

stanch (plural stanches)

1. That which stanches or checks a flow.
2. A floodgate by which water is accumulated, for floating a boat over a shallow part of a stream by its release.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Knight to this entry?)

Adjective

stanch (comparative stancher, superlative stanchest)

1. Strong and tight; sound; firm.

   a stanch ship

   • One of the closets is parqueted with plain deal, set in diamond, exceeding stanch and pretty.

2. Firm in principle; constant and zealous; loyal; hearty; steadfast.

   a stanch churchman; a stanch friend or adherent

   • 1689, Matthew Prior, an epistle to Fleetwood Shepherd, Esq.

     In politics I hear you're stanch.

3. Close; secret; private.

   • this is to be kept very stanch

Anagrams

• Chants, chanst, chants, snatch

English

Alternative forms

• kotoo (obsolete)
• kotow

Etymology

From Sinitic ????? (Cantonese kau3 tau4, Mandarin kòutóu), literally "knock head".

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ka??ta?/
• Rhymes: -a?

Verb

kowtow (third-person singular simple present kowtows, present participle kowtowing, simple past and past participle kowtowed)

1. (intransitive, figuratively) To grovel, act in a very submissive manner.
   • 2015, Oleg V. Khlevniuk, Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator, Yale University Press (?ISBN), page 265

     The letter to Razin contained another thought that preoccupied Stalin in the first months after the war: the need to avoid “kowtowing to the West,” including showing “unwarranted respect” for the “military authorities of Germany.”

2. (intransitive, historical) To kneel and bow low enough to touch one’s forehead to the ground.
   • 2013, Wendy Swartz, Robert Ford Campany, Yang Lu, Jessey J. C. Choo, Early Medieval China: A Sourcebook, Columbia University Press (?ISBN), page 645

     When the weather turned cold, the tears that he shed would become frozen like veins; the blood on his forehead from kowtowing would also freeze and would not drip.

3. (intransitive) To bow very deeply.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Derived terms

• kowtower
• kowtowing

Translations

Noun

kowtow (plural kowtows)

1. The act of kowtowing.
   • 1990, Hugh D. R. Baker, Hong Kong Images: People and Animals, Hong Kong University Press (?ISBN), page 93

     Three elders dressed in their long silk ceremonial gowns perform the kowtow before the altar in their clan ancestral hall.

Translations

See also

• prostrate

Portuguese

Noun

kowtow m (plural kowtows)

1. kowtow (bow low enough to touch one’s forehead to the ground)