Obs. exc. dial. Also 5 lowyn, law, 9 lowe. [a. ON. loga, f. loge LOW sb.2 Cf. MHG. lohen.] intr. To flame, blaze, glow; fig. to glow, be ‘on fire’ with passion, etc. Also with up.
13[?]. Gaw. & Gr. Knt., 236. Grener … Þen grene aumayl on golde lowande bryȝter.
a. 1400–50. Alexander, 226. Þe lede lawid in hire lofe as leme dose of gledis.
a. 1440. Sir Degrev., 1436. Arcangelus of rede golde … Lowynge ful lyȝth.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 315/1. Lowyn, or flamyn as fyyr, flammo.
1697. W. Cleland, Poems, 34. When stocks that are half rotten lowes, They burn best.
1724. Ramsay, Tea-t. Misc. (1733), I. 25. Dryest wood will eithest low. Ibid. (a. 1758), Mill, i. A’ lowing with love, my fancy did rove.
a. 1810. Tannahill, When John & me were married, Poems (1846), 116. And love will lowe in cottage low, As weel’s in lofty ha’.
1827. J. Wilson, Noct. Ambr., Wks. 1855, I. 278. North. Look at your right hand…. Shepherd. Its a’ lowin.
1870. E. Peacock, Ralf Skirl., I. 197. Each individual brick shone and ‘lowed’ with the intense heat.
1893. Stevenson, Catriona, 362. It lowed up in my mind that this was the girl’s father.
1894. Crockett, Raiders (ed. 3), 66. Transferring the flame when it lowed up to the bowl of his … pipe.
