hew
/hjuː/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.61 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To chop away at; to whittle down; to mow down.
name
A surname originating as a patronymic.
Example Sentences
- "Hew them to pieces, hack their bones asunder[…]"
- "A favourite at the Old Bailey, and eke at the Sessions, Mr. Stryver had begun cautiously to hew away the lower staves of the ladder on which he mounted."
- "So that all men despised him in the streets, / He hewed the living rock, with sweat and tears,"
- "My ways are hard and rough, and my arms are strong and tough, / And I hew the dizzy pine till darkness falls;"
- "She flung back the fortnight on his hands as if he had been an idler indifferent to dates, instead of an active young diplomatist who, to respond to her call, had had to hew his way through a very jungle of engagements!"
- "Among other things he found a sharp hunting knife, on the keen blade of which he immediately proceeded to cut his finger. Undaunted he continued his experiments, finding that he could hack and hew splinters of wood from the table and chairs with this new toy."
Etymology
From Middle English hewen, from Old English hēawan, from Proto-West Germanic *hauwan, from Proto-Germanic *hawwaną, from Proto-Indo-European *kewh₂- (“to strike, hew, forge”). Cognate to West Frisian houwe (“to hew”), Cimbrian hauan (“to dig”), Dutch houwen (“to hew”), German hauen (“to hew”), Luxembourgish haen (“to chop”), Danish hugge (“to hew”), Faroese høgga (“to hew”), Icelandic höggva (“to hew”), Norwegian Bokmål hogge, hugge (“to hew”), Norwegian Nynorsk hogga (“to hew”), Swedish hugga (“to hew”). Sense 3 derives from the phrase hew to the line (literally “cut evenly with an axe or saw”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /hjuː/
- British English: /hjuː/
Usage
- Transitive verb
- American usage
- Countable
- Obsolete
- Uncountable