trow

Etymology 1

From Middle English trowen, trouwen, treuwen, treowen, trouen, from Old English trēowan, trīewan (“to trust”) and Old English trūwian (“to trust, confide”), from Proto-Germanic *trewwāną (“to trust”) and Proto-Germanic *trūwāną (“to trust”); both from Proto-Indo-European *drew- (“faithful, true”). Akin to Scots trow, trew (“to believe, trust, confide in, prove”), Dutch trouwen (“to wed, marry”), German trauen (“to trust, marry”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål and Swedish tro (“to believe, think”), Norwegian Nynorsk tru (“to believe, think”), Icelandic trúa (“to trust, believe, believe in”).

verb

1. (archaic or dialectal) To trust or believe.
   ...Sure (he said) my wife shall never know Of this escape, and if she do, I know the worst I trow She can but chide, shall feare of chiding make me to forslow? 1567, Arthur Golding: Ovid's Metamorphoses; Bk. 2 lines 527-9
   "And as their valour, so you trow, defied on aspe'rous voyage cruel harm and sore, so many changing skies their manhood tried, such climes where storm-winds blow and billows roar[.]" 1880, Richard Francis Burton, Os Lusíadas, volume I, page 23
   But was the matter allowed to end there? I trow not. 1895, Kenneth Graham, The Golden Age, London, page 6
2. (archaic or dialectal) To have confidence in, or to give credence to.

noun

1. (archaic or dialectal) Trust or faith.

Etymology 2

Variant form of trow.

noun

1. (dated, nautical, countable) Any of several flat-bottomed sailing boats used for fishing or for carrying bulk goods.

Etymology 3

From Swedish or Norwegian troll. Doublet of troll, a later learned borrowing.

noun

1. (Orkney, Shetland, dated) A troll.

Etymology 4

Shortened form of trousers.

noun

1. (dated, nautical, uncountable) Used chiefly in the expression drop trow.