Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To seek the affection of (someone, especially a woman) with the intent to marry or begin a romantic relationship.
  • intransitive verb To gain the favor of (someone) or move (someone) to do something by entreaties or inducements.
  • intransitive verb To seek the romantic affection of someone, especially a woman.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To court; seek the favor, affection, or love of, especially with a view to marriage; solicit or seek in marriage.
  • To solicit; sue; ask with importunity; seek to influence or persuade; invite; endeavor to prevail upon to do or to grant something.
  • To seek; seek to obtain or bring about; act as if seeking to obtain or bring about.
  • To court; make love; sue in love.
  • To ask; seek; solicit.
  • An old spelling of woe.
  • noun A Scotch form of wool.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To solicit in love; to court.
  • transitive verb To court solicitously; to invite with importunity.
  • intransitive verb To court; to make love.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • interjection slang Expressing joy or mirth; woohoo, yahoo.
  • verb transitive To endeavor to gain someone's support.
  • verb transitive (of a man) To try to persuade a woman to marry him.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb seek someone's favor
  • verb make amorous advances towards

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English wowen, from Old English wōgian.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English wowen, woȝen, from Old English wōgian ("to woo, court, marry"), of uncertain origin. Cognate with Scots wow ("to woo"). Perhaps related to Old English wōg, wōh ("bending, crookedness"), in the specific sense of "bend or incline one toward oneself". If so, then derived from Proto-Germanic *wanhō (“a bend, angle”), from Proto-Indo-European *wonk- (“crooked, bent”), from Proto-Indo-European *wā- (“to bend, twist, turn”); related to Old Norse  ("corner, angle").

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Examples

Comments

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  • "Something in the way she moves

    Attracts me like no other lover;

    Something in the way she woos me..."

    - George Harrison.

    October 6, 2008

  • Also means pseudo-science, in the slang of sceptics.

    December 2, 2008

  • See: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Woo

    June 19, 2019