How to pronounce bow in American English

IPA /baʊ/ Syllables 1 · bow Stress 1st syllable

BOW

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Americans pronounce bow as BOW (/baʊ/). You'll hear it in sentences like "She took a bow as the curtain fell at the end of the play".

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "bow".

1 syllable, 2 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.

b/b/

Press your lips together, add vocal cord vibration, then release.

ow/aʊ/

Start with a dropped jaw and flat tongue. Glide into a relaxed, slightly rounded lip position as the back of the tongue stretches up.

In real conversation

Hear "bow" in the wild.

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"She took a bow as the curtain fell at the end of the play."

shee TUUK uh BOW uhz dhuh KUR·tuhn FEHL uht dhee EHND uhv dhuh PLAY

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

Is the American pronunciation of "bow" different from British English?

American English uses different vowel shapes, a relaxed retroflex R, and connected-speech tricks like flap-T and glottal-stop T that British Received Pronunciation generally avoids. The respell "BOW" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.