Definition of "avow"

avow

/əˈvaʊ/

verb
third-person singular simple present avows, present participle avowing, simple past and past participle avowed
1. (transitive) To declare openly and boldly, as something believed to be right; to own, acknowledge or confess frankly.
  Quotations
  […] in 1786, and for some period later, there were few, if any, prominent Americans, who avowed themselves in favor of broadly democratic systems.
  1858, Henry Stephens Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson, volume 1, page 461
2. (transitive) To bind or devote by a vow.
3. (law) To acknowledge and justify, as an act done. See avowry.
  Quotations
  avow himself the accomplice of his crimes
  1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press
noun
1. (obsolete) avowal
  Quotations
  without thy Knowledge and Avow
  1697, Virgil, “The Twelfth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […]