yew
/ju/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.03 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A species of coniferous tree, Taxus baccata, with dark-green flat needle-like leaves and seeds bearing red arils, native to western, central and southern Europe, northwest Africa, northern Iran and southwest Asia.
Countable
pron
Eye dialect spelling of you.
Example Sentences
- "Old Yew, which graspest at the stones That name the under-lying dead, Thy fibres net the dreamless head, Thy roots are wrapt about the bones."
- "Have a tree or two the witches particularly like, such as the alder, larch, cypress and hemlock; then, to counteract any possible evil effects, there must be a holly, yew, hazel, elder, mountain ash or juniper."
- "At Darley Dale, in Derbyshire, there is another yew about 1,000 years younger with a 32 ft girth, while a mighty yew at Goudhurst, Kent, has a bench seating 12 in its hollow trunk."
- "To prevent a too great conſumption of yew, bowyers were directed to make four bows of witch-haſel, aſh or elm, to one of yew, and no perſon under ſeventeen years of age, unleſs poſſeſſed of moveables worth forty marks, or the ſon of parents having an eſtate of ten pounds per annum might ſhoot in an yew bow, under a penalty of 6s. 8d."
- "English soldiers handled sturdy bows of yew, ash, or elm, which could propel an iron-tipped arrow as far as a hundred yards."
- "A spinoff, “Major Crimes,” starring “Battlestar Galactica” veteran Mary McDonnell and a number of “Closer” cast members, premieres in August. Sedgwick won’t be among them, swapping Brenda’s syrupy “thank yew” for an upbeat “buh-bye now” to her co-workers."
Etymology
From Middle English ew, from Old English īw, ēow, [both cognates of Welsh yw (“yews”), Irish eo, Old Irish eó respectively]; although the Old English form was conjectured to be from Proto-West Germanic *īhu, from Proto-Germanic *īhwaz (compare Icelandic ýr), masculine variant of *īwō (compare Dutch ijf, German Eibe), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁eyHw-. See also Hittite 𒄑𒂊𒅀𒀭 (eyan, “type of evergreen”), Latgalian īva (“bird cherry”), Lithuanian ievà (“bird cherry”), Russian и́ва (íva, “willow”). Compare typologically Ancient Greek τόξον (tóxon), possibly a cognate of Latin taxus.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: ew, īw, *īhu, *īhwaz, *h₁eyHw-
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ju/
- British English: /juː/
Usage
Inflected Forms
Phrases
American yew
Anglojap yew
Canada yew
Canadian yew
catkin yew
Chilean plum yew
Chinese yewcommon yew
European yew