hew

Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary

Contents 1 English 1.1 Etymology 1.2 Pronunciation 1.3 Verb 1.3.1 Derived terms 1.3.2 Translations

[edit] English

[edit] Etymology

Old English hēawan. Cognate with Dutch houwen, German hauen, Swedish hugga and Icelandic höggva.

[edit] Pronunciation

• IPA: /hju:/

  Rhymes: -uː

[edit] Verb

to hew (third-person singular simple present hews, present participle hewing, simple past hewed or rarely hew, past participle hewed or hewn)

1. (transitive) To chop away at; to whittle down; to mow down.
2. (transitive) To shape; to form.
3. (transitive, US) To act according to, to conform to; usually construed with to.
   • 1905, Albert Osborn, John Fletcher Hurst: A Biography,^[1] Jennings & Graham, page 428,

     Few men measured up to his standard of righteousness; he hewed to the line.

   • 1998, Frank M. Robinson and Lawrence Davidson, Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines,^[2] Collectors Press, Inc., ISBN 1-888054-12-3, page 103,

     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.

   • 2008, Chester E. Finn, Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform Since Sputnik,^[3] Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-12990-8, page 28,

     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, […]

[edit] Derived terms

• hewer
• rough-hew

[edit] Translations