tow

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

• noun Coarse broken flax or hemp fiber.
• noun A continuous untwisted bundle of manufactured fibers.
• transitive verb To draw or pull behind by a chain or line: synonym: pull.
• noun The act or an instance of towing.
• noun Something, such as a tugboat, that tows.
• noun Something, such as a barge or car, that is towed.
• noun A rope or cable used in towing.
• idiom (in tow) In a condition of being towed.
• idiom (in tow) Under close guidance; in one's charge.
• idiom (in tow) As a companion or follower.

from The Century Dictionary.

• An obsolete or dialectal form of tough.
• 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.
• To dredge with a towing-net. See towing, n., 2.
• noun The coarse and broken part of flax or hemp separated from the finer part by the hatchel or swingle.
• noun 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.
• noun A rope.
• To make fluffy by picking to pieces, as hair.
• noun The act of towing, or the state of being towed: generally with in: as, to take a disabled vessel in tow.
• noun A vessel or number of vessels that are being towed.

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

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

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

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

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

• noun the act of hauling something (as a vehicle) by means of a hitch or rope
• verb drag behind