Tow n a rope, card. a length of string

Tow is anything from thick rope to household string. Many Dictionary quotations refer to maritime uses such as this from An Account of the Depredations committed on the Clan Campbell and their Followers during the years 1685 and 1686 by the troops of the Duke of Gordon: “Ane anchor tow, 50 fadom length”. Bell-ropes also appear in several quotations. A 1738 reference in William Cramond’s The Church of Fordyce describes “The hole of the roof wherein the tow o the bell hings”. We have a climbing rope in the Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland (1496): “Giffin to the boy that brocht the towis, to clym the halk nest in the Abbotis Crag”. Tows were for restraint. Scott writes in Guy Mannering (1815) “Ropes nor tows wad not hae held him”. Worse punishment threatens in Neil Munro’s John Splendid (1896) “We had no doubt got a short quittance from MacColkitto, who was for the tow gravatte on the spot”. The sense of a cord for lowering a coffin is recorded in W. P. Milne’s Eppie Elrick (1955) “Mains was the chief mourner and got the principal ‘tow’ at the head of the coffin”. Potentially happier is a skipping rope but in Sheena Blackhall Wittgenstein’s Web (1996) “Aa a skippin towe did wis lift the dubby watter frae the orra puils at their feet an skitter it ower their heids”. No pocket should be without string so George MacDonald can write with confidence in Alec Forbes of Howglen “Pit yer han’ i’ my jacket-pooch an tak’ oot a bit towie”. A tow was one of the trace-ropes in a horse-harness and so ‘to gang ower the tow’ is ‘to get out of control’ and as James Smith writes in Jenny Blair’s Maunderings (1872) says “For ane that has the power o' self-restraint, there’s thousands gang far owre the tow”.

Scots Word of the Week is written by Chris Robinson of Scottish Language Dictionaries.