mew

Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to: navigation, search
See also Mew

Contents

English [edit]

Pronunciation [edit]

Etymology 1 [edit]

From Middle English mewe, from Old English mǣw, from Proto-Germanic *maihwaz, *maiwaz (“seagull”) (compare West Frisian meau, mieu, Dutch meeuw, German Möwe), from *maiwijanan 'to shout, mew' (compare Middle English mawen 'to shout, mew', Middle Dutch mauwen, Middle High German māwen); akin to Latvian maût 'to roar', Old Church Slavonic myjati 'to mew'.

Noun [edit]

mew (plural mews)

  1. (obsolete) A gull, seagull.
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.xii:
      A daungerous and detestable place, / To which nor fish nor fowle did once approch, / But yelling Meawes, with Seagulles hoarse and bace [...].
Translations [edit]
gull or seagull

Etymology 2 [edit]

From Anglo-Norman mue, muwe, and Middle French mue (“shedding feathers; cage for moulting birds; prison”), from muer (“to moult”).

Noun [edit]

mew (plural mews)

  1. (obsolete) A prison, or other place of confinement.
  2. (obsolete) A hiding-place; a secret store or den.
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.vii:
      Ne toung did tell, ne hand these handled not, / But safe I haue them kept in secret mew, / From heauens sight, and powre of all which them pursew.
  3. (falconry) A cage for hawks, especially while moulting.
    • 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. I, New York 2001, p. 243:
      A horse in a stable that never travels, a hawk in a mew that seldom flies, are both subject to diseases; which, left unto themselves, are most free from any such encumbrances.
  4. (falconry, in the plural) A building or set of buildings where moulting birds are kept.

Verb [edit]

mew (third-person singular simple present mews, present participle mewing, simple past and past participle mewed)

  1. (obsolete) To shut away, confine, lock up.
    • c. 1669, John Donne, "Loves Warre":
      To mew me in a Ship, is to inthrall / Mee in a prison, that weare like to fall [...].
    • Shakespeare
      More pity that the eagle should be mewed.
    • Dryden
      Close mewed in their sedans, for fear of air.
  2. (of a bird) To moult.

Etymology 3 [edit]

Onomatopoeic

Noun [edit]

mew (plural mews)

  1. The crying sound of a cat; a meow.
Translations [edit]
crying sound of a cat — see meow

Verb [edit]

mew (third-person singular simple present mews, present participle mewing, simple past and past participle mewed)

  1. (of a cat) To meow.
Translations [edit]
meow — see meow

Interjection [edit]

mew

  1. A cat's cry.

Anagrams [edit]

Yurok [edit]

Noun [edit]

mew

  1. widower
Retrieved from "http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=mew&oldid=20563678"