Pronunciations (3)
-
/hjuː/
Pronunciation notes
- Canada
- Received-Pronunciation
- US
-
[çuː]
Pronunciation notes
- Canada
- Received-Pronunciation
- US
-
hjuː
Verb
To chop away at; to whittle down; to mow down.
Usage- Transitive or intransitive
- Examples
-
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.
More examples (4)
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.
To shape; to form.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
-
to hew out a sepulchre
More examples (1)
Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousnesse, ye that seeke the Lord: looke vnto the rocke whence yee are hewen, and to the hole of the pitte whence ye are digged.
Wisedome hath builded her house: she hath hewen out her seuen pillars.
More examples (4)
rather polishing old works than hewing out new
The oak he had hauled was being hewed into shape by a neighbour who knew how, and every wagon that carried a log to the city to be dressed at the mill brought back timber for side walls, joists, and rafters.
In 1974, I spoke of poetry as “hewn from the commonest living substance” as a doorframe is hewn of wood.
Constructed by a firm named Posiva, Onkalo has been hewn into the island of Olkiluoto, a brief bridge’s length off Finland’s south-west coast.
To act according to, to conform to; usually construed with to.
Usage- US usage
- Transitive
- Examples
-
Few men measured up to his standard of righteousness; he hewed to the line.
More examples (4)
Inside the stories usually hewed to a consistent formula: no matter how outlandish and weird the circumstances, in the end everything had to have a natural, if not plausible, ending—frequently, though not always, involving a mad scientist.
Faculty members and students alike were buzzing with the fashionable nostrums that dominated U.S. education discourse in the late sixties, […] These hewed to the recommendations of the Plowden Report, […]
Hewing to the old comedy convention of beginning a speech by randomly referencing something in eyesight, Homer begins his talk about the birds and the bees by saying that women are like refrigerators: they’re all about six feet tall and weigh three hundred pounds and make ice cubes.
King recovered the rights on the condition that he'd stop publicly disparaging Kubrick's version. "For a long time I hewed that line," he told CBS News in June. "And then Mr. Kubrick died. So now I figured, what the hell. I've gone back to saying mean things about it."
Noun
Destruction by cutting down or hewing.
Usage- Countable
- Obsolete
- Rare
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
Of whom he makes such hauocke and such hew, / That swarmes of damned soules to hell he sends
Noun
Hue; colour.
Usage- Countable
- Obsolete
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
[…] while the youthful hew Sits on thy skin like morning dew
Shape; form.
Usage- Countable
- Obsolete
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
He taught to imitate that Lady trew, Whose semblance she did carrie under feigned hew.
Verb
make or shape as with an axe
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
hew out a path in the rock
strike with an axe; cut down, strike
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
hew an oak