HEW • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Hew

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verb

Hew v. t. (past hewed; past part. hewn; pres. part. hewing)

To cut with an ax; to fell with a sharp instrument; often with down, or off.

To form or shape with a sharp instrument; to cut; hence, to form laboriously; often with out; as, to hew out a sepulcher. "Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn." "Rather polishing old works than hewing out new."

To cut in pieces; to chop; to hack. "Hew them to pieces; hack their bones asunder."

noun

Hew n. Destruction by cutting down. (Obs.) "Of whom he makes such havoc and such hew."

Hew n.

Hue; color. (Obs.)

Shape; form. (Obs.)

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Etymology of 'Hew'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Hew" Quotes from Famous Books

... hazy, and he could scarcely see the widening gap in the rough bark into which the trenchant steel cut. It was evident that the steadily increasing jam would rub the bridge piers out of existence long before any two men could hew half way through the great trunk, but, fortunately, the log was now bending like a fully-drawn bow, and the pressure would burst it asunder when a little more of its circumference had been chopped into. So, ...

— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... Snatching his body forth from sleep, stirs up his folk at need: "Wake ye, and hurry now, O men! get to the thwarts with speed, And bustle to unfurl the sails! here sent from heaven again A God hath spurred us on to flight, and biddeth hew atwain The hempen twine. O holy God, we follow on thy way, Whatso thou art; and glad once more thy bidding we obey. O be with us! give gracious aid; set stars the heaven about To bless our ways!" And from ...

— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil

... portraicture in his episcopal robes, on a large bed under a fair table of black marble, with a library of books about him. These men that were such enemies to the name and office of a bishop, and much more to his person, hack and hew the poor innocent statue in pieces, and soon destroy'd all the tomb. So that in a short space, all that fair and curious monument was buried in ...

— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips

... him with his formidable philosophic hammer; but Nietzsche himself was by temperament too spiritual, too cold, too aloof from the common instincts of humanity to do more than hew out an opening through the gloomy thickets of the ascetic forest. He was himself too entirely intellectual, too high and icy and austere and imaginative ever to bring the actual feet of the dancers, and the lutes and flutes of the wanton singers into the sunlit path to ...

— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... has arrived to the point where the careful economizing of our food resources will be absolutely necessary. The rapid increase of the world's population which has occurred, especially within the last two centuries, is a hew world experience. Two hundred years ago the average length of human life was less than 20 years, as it still is in Mexico and some other parts of the world where the life-saving influence of modern sanitation and health conservation have not had an opportunity to exercise their influence. ...

— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various

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