chowchow

• chow-chow, chow chow

Borrowed from Chinese Pidgin English chow-chow (“food”). Compare Macanese chau-cháu.

chowchow (countable and uncountable, plural chowchows)

1. A Chinese preserve. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
2. An American relish, containing pickled green tomatoes, cabbage, and often other vegetables.
3. A fruit ketchup
4. (obsolete, slang, Anglo-Chinese) Gossip.
5. Alternative form of Chow Chow (“type of dog”).

chowchow (third-person singular simple present chowchows, present participle chowchowing, simple past and past participle chowchowed)

1. (obsolete, slang, Anglo-Chinese) To gossip.
   • 1861, The London and China Telegraph, page 316:

     […] some ten or twelve fellows were chow chowing and drinking, playing at the Chinese game with their fingers, shouting and yelling like demons.

chowchow (not comparable)

1. (obsolete, slang, Anglo-Chinese) Consisting of several kinds mingled together; mixed.

   chowchow sweetmeats (preserved fruits put together)

chowchow m (plural chowchows)

1. alternative form of chow chow