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Middlemarch vocabulary
551 vocabulary words, including people, places, music, artists, etc.
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tow
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notes:
{n}
► definition
Definition:a bundle of natural, unspun fibers
photo: By Svenboatbuilder - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4294084
► uses
Uses:
He had more tow on his distaff Than Gerveis knew.
Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales: The Miller's Tale
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“He had more tow on his distaff Than Gerveis knew.” — CHAUCER.
George Eliot. Middlemarch (quoting Chaucer)
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He evidently listened only because he had ears which, though there was a piece of tow in one of them*, could not help hearing; but it was evident that nothing the general could say would surprise or even interest him
Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace: 10 (Book Ten)
*basically saying he had cotton in one ear, maybe only half-listening (from a Russian expression??)
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I also didn't want to see Hosie Roach, a snot-nosed twenty-one-year-old mill boy in my class who stunk like a polecat and had tow-colored hair so thick and tangled it looked like a cootie stable.
Olive Ann Burns. Cold Sassy Tree, p.71 (1984)
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the Scotch student, a little fume of a fellow, blond as tow,
James Joyce. Ulysses
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