kowtow

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Smaller domestic military budgets also reduce the need for companies to kowtow to politicians by maintaining unprofitable operations in their districts or supporting civilian projects.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 1, 2026

Zara doesn't automatically kowtow to workplace hierarchies, either.

From Salon • Sep. 2, 2023

He’s an American native and a fiercely secular one at that, but the controversy awakens something in him, a stubborn individualism and a refusal to kowtow to ignorance.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 5, 2021

The kowtow meant prostrating oneself before the emperor or a patriarch and knocking one’s head on the ground.

From New York Times • Jun. 20, 2020

But watching him kowtow to the grocer made me know it wasn’t so.

From "Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High" by Melba Pattillo Beals