Library / English Dictionary

HEW

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

Irregular inflected form: hewn   

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Strike with an axe; cut down, strike

Example:

hew an oak

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "hew" is one way to...):

strike (deliver a sharp blow, as with the hand, fist, or weapon)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "hew"):

snag (hew jaggedly)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

They hew the trees

Also:

hew out (make or shape as with an axe)

Derivation:

hewer (a person who hews)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Make or shape as with an axe

Example:

hew out a path in the rock

Synonyms:

hew; hew out

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "hew" is one way to...):

carve (form by carving)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "hew"):

rough-hew; roughcast (hew roughly, without finishing the surface)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

hewer (a person who hews)

Credits

 Context examples: 

But when he began to hew down a tree, it was not long before he made a false stroke, and the axe cut him in the arm, so that he had to go home and have it bound up.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

He was, in short, in his after-dinner mood; more expanded and genial, and also more self- indulgent than the frigid and rigid temper of the morning; still he looked preciously grim, cushioning his massive head against the swelling back of his chair, and receiving the light of the fire on his granite- hewn features, and in his great, dark eyes; for he had great, dark eyes, and very fine eyes, too—not without a certain change in their depths sometimes, which, if it was not softness, reminded you, at least, of that feeling.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But, not to detract from a nation, to which, during my life, I shall acknowledge myself extremely obliged, it must be allowed, that whatever this famous tower wants in height, is amply made up in beauty and strength: for the walls are near a hundred feet thick, built of hewn stone, whereof each is about forty feet square, and adorned on all sides with statues of gods and emperors, cut in marble, larger than the life, placed in their several niches.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

“Then must I hew a passage,” cried the stranger, with his shoulder braced round and his hand upon his hilt.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Now, I have got the bird, said the tailor, and came out from behind the tree and put the rope round its neck, and then with his axe he hewed the horn out of the tree, and when all was ready he led the beast away and took it to the king.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Firm, faithful, and devoted, full of energy, and zeal, and truth, he labours for his race; he clears their painful way to improvement; he hews down like a giant the prejudices of creed and caste that encumber it.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The low ceiling, smoke-blackened and dingy, was pierced by several square trap-doors with rough-hewn ladders leading up to them.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I saw he was of the material from which nature hews her heroes—Christian and Pagan—her lawgivers, her statesmen, her conquerors: a steadfast bulwark for great interests to rest upon; but, at the fireside, too often a cold cumbrous column, gloomy and out of place.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Black was the mouth of Twynham Castle, though a pair of torches burning at the further end of the gateway cast a red glare over the outer bailey, and sent a dim, ruddy flicker through the rough-hewn arch, rising and falling with fitful brightness.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I fear, mon gar., that they have taught thee but badly at Beaulieu, for surely a bishop knows more of what is right and what is ill than an abbot can do, and I myself with these very eyes saw the Bishop of Lincoln hew into a Scottish hobeler with a battle-axe, which was a passing strange way of showing him that he loved him.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)