Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To place or arrange, especially in a neat, compact way.
  • transitive verb To fill (a place or container) by packing tightly.
  • transitive verb To store for future use.
  • transitive verb Slang To refrain from; stop.
  • transitive verb To provide lodging for; quarter.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To cut off; crop; lop.
  • To dry In an oven.
  • To put in a suitable or convenient place or position; put in a place aside or out of the way; lay up; put up; pack; especially, to pack in a convenient form: as, to stow bags, bales, or casks in a ship's hold; to stow sheaves.
  • To accumulate or compactly arrange anything in; fill by packing closely: as, to stow a box or the hold of a ship.
  • To contain; hold.
  • To furl or roll up, as a sail.
  • In mining, to fill up (vacant spaces) with stowing.
  • To bestow; give; grant.
  • To intrust; commit; give in charge.
  • To furnish as the stowdown: as, the whale stowed down 75 barrels of oil.
  • To resist; hinder; stop.
  • To put out of sight or hearing; be silent about.
  • To make resistance; resist.
  • To conceal one's self on a ship (with a view to a free passage): with away. See stowaway.
  • noun In tinplate manuf., the structure which contains the furnace and the series of five pots.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To place or arrange in a compact mass; to put in its proper place, or in a suitable place; to pack.
  • transitive verb To put away in some place; to hide; to lodge.
  • transitive verb To arrange anything compactly in; to fill, by packing closely.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete A place.
  • verb to put something away in a compact and tidy manner
  • verb to put something away to store it in a space saving manner and over long time

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb fill by packing tightly

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English stowen, from stowe, place, from Old English stōw; see stā- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, from Old English stōw ("a place"). See -stow.

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