How to pronounce bowed in American English

IPA /baʊd/ Syllables 1 · bowd Stress 1st syllable

BOWD

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Americans pronounce bowed as BOWD (/baʊd/). You'll hear it in sentences like "The clown bowed down to the loud crowd".

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "bowed".

1 syllable, 3 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.

d/d/

Touch the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth. Add vocal cord vibration as you release.

In real conversation

Hear "bowed" in the wild.

Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.

"The clown bowed down to the loud crowd."

dhuh KLOWN BOWD DOWN tuh dhuh LOWD KROWD

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

Is the American pronunciation of "bowed" 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 "BOWD" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.