Main meanings of pow in English

: pow¹ pow² POW³

pow¹

Pronunciation /paʊ/

Translate pow into Spanish

exclamation

Expressing the sound of a blow or explosion.
‘Pow! Bombs went off on six beaches at once’
- ‘They get these snails over there and they just - pow!’
- ‘You roll the egg rolls into the lettuce, add whatever suits your fancy, and dip the whole shebang into a bowl of light, sweet dressing - pow!’
- ‘I went into this little shop, made my way to the back, and then she looked up at me and smiled… pow!’
- ‘He got rocking and talking, rocking and talking, and - pow!’
- ‘Compress a vaporized mix of a little gasoline and a little air in a combustion chamber, add a spark and - pow!’
- ‘‘I don't know,’ Greg said, turning about to face her, ‘It started going all funny, sped up, and then pow!’’
- ‘Not only did he once support himself painting billboards, but he makes art that draws upon their color, scale, iconography, and compositional pow!’
- ‘What's great about a red dress, it has pow, it has immediate sex appeal, it shows you off, it brightens you up.’
- ‘You had an idea, took it to a games company and pow… off you go and finish the code.’
- ‘The boy pulled out his toy gun and yelled, ‘Pow, pow.’’
- ‘Arthur tells of the loss of an eye in the lunch line at one camp: ‘We are standing and - pow - the end of the whip takes my eye.’’
- ‘I had to go up and down, with the right hand from the jab, set it out with the jab - pow - right to the body, get back to the head, mix it up.’
- ‘The offense consisted of pointing a weapon described as ‘a breaded chicken finger’ and uttering the words, ‘pow, pow, pow.’’
- ‘And bam, pow, bam… things are going to be so much fun!’
- ‘And - something else most journalists should know - quite often you look away for a moment and pow, there it is on the front page with standardised spelling.’
- ‘All the mileage he had on that arm built up and… pow… it was almost gone, if not for a miracle of surgery that's near common today.’
- ‘Anyway, my resistance to change collapsed with the appearance on the business scene in North Yorkshire of two new ventures which were designed to inject a bit of zip, zap and pow into my presence.’
- ‘Then, pow, and she was on the floor, and he was standing over her.’
- ‘Any pitcher can get overused or take a ball off their head and pow - in an instant the whole rotation or pen has changed.’
- ‘I figured I'd pull my boat the few feet back to deeper water, hop back in, and pow, I'd be off.’

Origin

Late 19th century (originally US): imitative. There is also an isolated 16th-century example in early modern English.

Main meanings of pow in English

: pow¹ pow² POW³

pow²

Pronunciation /paʊ/

Translate pow into Spanish

noun

mass noun informal Skiing

short for powder (sense 2 of the noun)
- ‘skiing through fresh pow in really cold conditions is my favourite time on the mountain’
- ‘You'll need the rest after skiing 2,000 vertical feet of tight trees and pow.’
- ‘In the soft and cut-up pow, they skied well, but again were a little squirrelly as the tips and tails got pushed around a bit.’
- ‘After a good night's snowfall, you can see dozens of tiny figures trudging up to the snow-peaks, skis on their backs, for that ultimate thrill of untracked 'pow'.’
- ‘On the other side of the valley we skied laps of pow with Neal.’
- ‘Wiping out in deep pow on a shallow gradient is like falling into a pool and not being able to swim!’