⟨ow⟩

⟨ow⟩ is a vowel digraph commonly found in English consisting of the letters O and W.

⟨owl⟩, ⟨owe⟩, ⟨owel⟩ and ⟨ower⟩ are dealt with separately.

Coding

Phoneme	Example words	Notes
ᴍᴏᴜᴛʜ vowel phoneme /aʊ/	allow, bow (“incline”) brow, brown, browse, clown, cow, crowd, crown, down, drown, eyebrow, frown, Glasgow, how, now, powder, plow, row (“quarrel”), sow (“female pig”), town, vow, wow
ɢᴏᴀᴛ vowel phoneme /əʊ/	arrow, below, blow, borrow, bow (“weapon”), crow, elbow, fellow, flow, follow, grow, grown, growth, know, low, narrow, own, shadow, show, slow, snow, sow (“plant seeds”), throw, tomorrow, tow, window, yellow
Either ᴍᴏᴜᴛʜ or ɢᴏᴀᴛ, depending on accent	Moscow
ʟᴏᴛ vowel phoneme	knowledge /ˈnɒlɪdʒ/, knowledgeable /ˈnɒlɪdʒəbəl/
ɢᴏᴏꜱᴇ vowel phoneme /uː/	Cowper (variant of Cooper).	Rare

Minimal pairs

/aʊ/ vs. /əʊ/: clown, clone; drown, drone; now, know/no; town, tone

One extra consonant with /aʊ/: how, house; owl, foul; cow, couch;

One extra consonant with /əʊ/: blow, bloke, bloat; glow, globe; flow, float;

Heteronyms

There are some heteronyms with this spelling, including:

• bow: /baʊ/ inclination, /bəʊ/ weapon;
• row: /raʊ/ quarrel, /rəʊ/ line;

Two sounds in one concept

• /əʊ/-/aʊ/: burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia)

These words don’t rhyme

/aʊ/ vs. /əʊ/: cow, low; now, know; owl, bowl; allow, below; flower, slower; frown, grown

One extra letter changes the vowel

• /aʊ/ then /əʊ/: owl, bowl; now, know, snow;

• /əʊ/ then /aʊ/: crow, crowd, crown;

Proper names

• /əʊ/: David Bowie, J.K. Rowling
• The name Cowper is pronounced like Cooper /ku:pə(r)/.

Spanish L1

Spanish speakers are notorious bad listeners. They will often pronounce /əʊ/ instead of /aʊ/. Even the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language suggested the spelling "clon" for “clown", when it should have been "claun".