tow

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To draw or pull behind by a chain or line: a tugboat towing a barge. See Synonyms at pull.
2. n. The act or an instance of towing.
3. n. The condition of being towed: a car with a trailer in tow.
4. n. Something, such as a tugboat, that tows.
5. n. Something, such as a barge or car, that is towed.
6. n. A rope or cable used in towing.
7. idiom. in tow Under close guidance; in one's charge: The new student was taken in tow by a peer counselor.
8. idiom. in tow As a companion or follower: came to dinner with a friend in tow.
9. n. Coarse broken flax or hemp fiber prepared for spinning. See Regional Note at gunnysack.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To make fluffy by picking to pieces, as hair.
2. To pull; draw; haul; especially, to drag through the water by means of a rope or chain: as, to tow a small boat astern; to tow a vessel into harbor. The towing of boats on canals is generally performed by horses or mules; on other waters, by steamboats specially constructed for the purpose, and known as towboats or tugboats, or simply as tugs.
3. To dredge with a towing-net. See towing, n., 2.
4. n. The act of towing, or the state of being towed: generally with in: as, to take a disabled vessel in tow.
5. n. A vessel or number of vessels that are being towed.
6. n. A rope.
7. n. The coarse and broken part of flax or hemp separated from the finer part by the hatchel or swingle.
8. n. In hecking, a quantity of hemp fibers sufficient for spinning a yarn 160 fathoms long. These fibers are passed twice through the heckle, and are then tied up into a bundle, which weighs about 3½ pounds.
9. An obsolete or dialectal form of tough.

Wiktionary

1. v. transitive To pull something behind one using a line or chain; to haul.
2. n. The act of towing and the condition of being towed.
3. n. Something, such as a tugboat, that tows.
4. n. Something, such as a barge, that is towed.
5. n. A rope or cable used in towing.
6. n. An untwisted bundle of fibers such as cellulose acetate, flax, hemp or jute.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The coarse and broken part of flax or hemp, separated from the finer part by the hatchel or swingle.
2. v. To draw or pull through the water, as a vessel of any kind, by means of a rope.
3. n. A rope by which anything is towed; a towline, or towrope.
4. n. The act of towing, or the state of being towed; -- chiefly used in the phrase, to take in tow, that is to tow.
5. n. That which is towed, or drawn by a towline, as a barge, raft, collection of boats, ect.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the act of hauling something (as a vehicle) by means of a hitch or rope
2. v. drag behind