chow
n. uncountablen. food, especially a meal. It is an informal word often used for animal food or casual human meals.
n. food, particularly a specific meal or the food given to animals. Informal register; common in North American English.
The dog ate its chow quickly.
We stopped for chow at a roadside diner.
The hikers shared their chow, dividing the dried fruit and jerky evenly among the group.
From Cantonese 周 (zau¹).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Last updated May 4, 2026