mow, v. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

mow v.

[Scot./northern dial. mow, to copulate, and note mouldiworp n.]

to have sexual intercourse; thus mowing n.

c.1538		D. Lyndsay ‘Kitteis Confessioun’ in Laing Works I 134: Quod he, Leve ye in lecherie? / Quod scho, Will Leno mowit me.
1638		R. Brome Antipodes IV ii: ser.: Sir here’s a Gentlewoman makes towards you. gent.: Me? she’s deceiv’d, I am not for her mowing.
1667		J. Lacey Sauny the Scot II i: I take as Muckle Pleasure, Sir, in Scratten and Scrubbin, as ye de in Tiplin and Mowing.
1669		New Academy in Bold (1979) 33: There is no better thing than to be mowing / Than to be mowing.
1671		‘L.B.’ New Academy of Complements 271: Bonny Kate [...] Thou be’st a bonny Lass, fain would I mow thee.
1705–07		N. Ward Hudibras Redivivus II:3 6: Some pregnant Dames, well plough’d and sow’d, / Or, as the Scotch will have it, mow’d.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy V 89: When he was Drunk, / In came a Punck, / And ask’d gan he would Mow her.
1785		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Mow, to mow, a Scotch word for the act of copulation.
1792		Burns ‘When Princes & Prelates’ Merry Muses of Caledonia (1965) 53: And why shouldna poor folk mowe, mowe, mowe, / And why shouldna poor folk mowe.
c.1800		Burns ‘Errock Brae’ Merry Muses of Caledonia (1965) 162: A Prelate he loups on before, / A Catholic behin’. / But gie me a Cameronian, / He’ll mow a body blin’.
1808		in Jamieson Etym. Dict. Scot. Lang. n.p.: Mow .
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1833		‘The Mower’ in Fal-Lal Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 20: With courage bold, undaunted, she brought me to her ground, / With my tearing scythe in order for mowing meadows down, / There I mowed from nine till breakfast time [etc.].
1847–81		Halliwell Archaic and Provincial Words II 564/1: Mow [...] (3) Futuo North.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum 57: ‘The bloke was mowing the molly,’ the man was kissing the girl.
1925		E. Field ‘A French Crisis’ in Facetiae Americana 19: Rasp, roger, diddle, bugger, screw, canoodle, kife and mow.
1961		(con. 1952) in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) II 644: If all the young ladies were rushes a-growing, / I’d take out my scythe and start in a-mowing.
1997		Share Slanguage.

SE in slang uses

In phrases

mow (on) (v.)

(US campus) to eat heartily, to gorge oneself.

1987		Eble Campus Sl. Oct.
1989		P. Munro Sl. U. 133: mow to eat till one bursts, gorge oneself.
1996		Eble Sl. and Sociability 31: Sometimes the word + particle construction is typical of and strengthens the synonymy of a group of related verbs: [...] mow on, munch out, pig out, pork out, [...] all mean ‘to eat, usually quickly or in great quantity’.

mow the brigalo suckers (v.) [brigalow, a form of acacia, found in New South Wales and Queensland. Its rapid growth can render large areas of land unusable]

(Aus.) to shave one’s beard.

2002

Taskforce Echelon 🌐 He nods saying to himself ‘aye, I could use to mow the Brigalo suckers, alright’ feeling the little bit of stubble on his face. ‘Must look all bow wow.’.

mow the lawn (v.)

see under lawn n.²