trow

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English trouen, also trowen,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English trūwian (“to trust”) and trēowan or trēowian.^[2][5][6][7] According to the OED, trūwian, from trūwa (“faith, belief”), was the earlier and more usual, but in Middle English its place was mainly taken by forms from trēowian, from trēow (“faith, belief”), and the two types sometimes ran together.^[5][3] Wiktionary traces them to Proto-Germanic *trūwāną and *trewwāną,^[1] from Proto-Indo-European *deru- (“to be firm, solid, steadfast”),^[8][3] which Wiktionary writes *drew-.^[1] Cognates of the first type are Old Saxon trûon, Old High German trûên, German trauen, Old Norse trúa and Gothic 𐍄𐍂𐌰𐌿𐌰𐌽 (trauan, “to trust”); the second type has Dutch trouwen (“to believe, trust, espouse”).^[5] It is related to true, troth and truce.^[9][10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

To trust, to have confidence in a person or thing: the OED's first record is in Ælfred's translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care.^[5] Bosworth–Toller glosses trēowian as "to trust, confide" and also "to be true to a person".^[12] Dictionary.com's Random House text dates the word before 900,^[13] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged before the 12th century.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Old English already had both the sense of trusting a person and a construction with a clause, "to believe, suppose that",^[5] and the second is the sense that survives in modern dictionaries.^[10][11] Chaucer used it 206 times for "believe, trust" and "suppose, think", and Gower 27 times.^[14] The parenthetical I trow, often little more than a filler, is recorded from before 1400.^[5] From about 1553 bare trow stood for I trow or trow you, and it could be added to a question to show contempt or surprise,^[5][4] as in Shakespeare's "What means the fool, trow?".^[15] Johnson (1755) gave "to think; to imagine; to conceive" and called it "a word now disused".^[15] The poets kept it as an archaism, as in Coleridge's "Why, this is strange, I trow!",^[6] and it lasted in dialect: the English Dialect Dictionary records "to trust, believe, feel sure; to think" from Scotland, Northumberland, Lancashire, Bedfordshire and Devon, quoting Scott's "He gars him e'en trow that chalk is cheese".^[16]

Timeline

• Old English – to trust, have confidence in a person or thing, in Ælfred (to 1829).^[5]
• Old English – to believe in or on, to have confidence in, in Ælfric (to 1870).^[5]
• Old English – with an object clause, to believe, think, suppose, in Ælfric.^[5]
• c. 1175 – to believe a statement, accept it as true.^[5]
• before 1275 – to believe or suppose someone or something to be so (obsolete by 1596).^[5]
• 1340–70 – to expect or hope, in Alisaunder (obsolete by 1600).^[5]
• before 1400 – parenthetical I trow, I suppose, in the Cursor Mundi.^[5]
• before 1400 – noun, belief, faith, trust, in the Cursor Mundi; later also a covenant (obsolete by 1634).^[5]
• c. 1553 – bare trow, short for I trow or trow you, in Respublica (obsolete by 1740).^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (archaic) To think, suppose or believe, often in the parenthetical I trow.^{[10][11][4][5]}
2. (archaic) To trust, or to believe in: in Scots and some English dialects, also to feel sure.^[10][5][16]
3. (obsolete, 1340–1600) To expect or hope.^[5][4][6]
4. (obsolete, 1553–1740) Short for I trow or trow you, added to a question, expressing contempt or surprise.^[5][4][15]

Noun

1. (obsolete, before 1400–1634) Belief, faith or a covenant.^[5][4][6]

Related words

• true
• troth
• truth
• truce
• trust

Usage notes

Other words have the same spelling and separate origins.^[5][6] The boat trow is a dialect variant of trough, recorded from about 1330 in Mannyng's Chronicle, for various boats and barges, such as the large flat-bottomed sailing barge of the Severn and a double boat used for spearing salmon.^[5][6][4] In Orkney and Shetland, trow or drow is a variant of troll, recorded from 1640.^[5][6][16] The OED gives both /trəʊ/ and /traʊ/ for British English.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
13. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
14. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
15. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)