Also 7 bowgh-wawgh, bough-wough, 8 bough waugh. [Imitative. Other forms are BAUGH, BOUGH, BAW-WAW, q.v.]
1. An imitation of the barking of a dog.
1576. Lambarde, Peramb. Kent (1826), 233 [See BAW-WAW.]
1610. Shaks., Temp., I. ii. 382. Harke, harke, bowgh wawgh: the watch-Dogges barke.
1651. Ogilby, Æsop (1665), 53. Bough wough, Whose that dare break Into my master’s House?
1682. Otway, Venice Pres., III. i. 35. Now, bough waugh, waugh, bough waugh (Barks like a dog).
1855. Browning, Holy-Cross Day, in Men & Wom., II. 160. Bow, wow, wow,—a bone for the dog!
2. as sb. The bark of a dog; also fig.
a. 1832. Scott, Diary (Jane Austen’s novels). The big bow-wow I can do myself like any one going.
1849. W. Irving, Crayon Misc., 211. With a deep-mouthed bow-wow.
1854. Gilfillan, Beattie’s Poems, Introd. 16. The deep bow-wows of Johnson’s talk.
b. attrib., as in bow-wow theory, applied in ridicule to the theory that human speech originated in the imitation of animal sounds.
1864. Max Müller, Sc. Lang., Ser. II. 87. The strong objection … to what I called the Bow-wow and the Pooh-pooh theories.
1883. F. H. Cushing, in Century Mag., XXVI. 33/1. Advocates of the ‘Bow-wow’ theory of the origin of language may find convincing facts among the Zuñis.
c. quasi-adj. Dog-like, snarling, barking.
1838. W. Gardiner, Music Nat., 62. Johnson’s sayings would not have appeared half so extraordinary but for his bow-wow way.
1854. H. Miller, Sch. & Schm. (1858), 344. He could recite in the ‘big bow-wow style.’
3. transf. A dog. humorous or as nursery term.
a. 1800. Cowper, Beau’s Reply (D.). Nor some reproof yourself refuse From your aggrieved Bow-wow.
