A relish made from mixed vegetables preserved in mustard; also, a Chinese dog breed with a thick fluffy coat.
From Chinese pidgin English chow-chow (meaning miscellaneous or mixed), reduplicating chow (meaning food). The dog breed was named after the food term, possibly because the dogs were believed to have been eaten in China, or simply because they arrived via trade routes.
Chowchow is linguistic serendipity—we borrowed a pidgin English phrase from China, used it for a pickled vegetable relish, then accidentally applied it to an actual dog breed, creating one of English's most delightfully confused etymologies!
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