hiew

Old English

Alternative forms

hēow, hīw, hīow, hēo

Etymology

Inherited from Proto-West Germanic *hiwi, from Proto-Germanic *hiwją (“shape, form, appearance, blee”), from Proto-Indo-European *kew- (“skin, complexion”).

Cognate with Bornholm Danish hy (“complexion”), Gothic 𐌷𐌹𐍅𐌹 (hiwi, “form, appearance”), Old Norse hý (“down of birds”), Swedish hy, Sanskrit छवि (chavi, “skin, hide, beauty, splendour”).

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /xi͜yːw/, [hi͜yːw]

Noun

hīew n

form, appearance, likeness
- Early 11th c., Defensor's translation of Liber Scintillarum
  ...nā besēoh þū on wīfes hīw...
  ...do not look at a woman's appearance...
- c. 996, Ælfric's Lives of Saints
  Þā ġeseah hē onġemang ōðrum twēġen ġeonge cneohtas, þæt hīe wǣron wlitiġe on hīewe and lange on wæstmum.
  Then he (Trajan) spotted two boys in the crowd and noticed they were beautiful in appearance and tall in stature.
- c. 992, Ælfric, "The Epiphany of the Lord"
  Eft embe ġēara ymbrynum hē wearð on his fulluhte on þysum dæġe middanġearde ġeswutelod, ðāðā sē Hālga Gāst, on culfran hīwe, uppon him ġereste, and þæs Fæder stemn of heofenum hlūde sweġde, þūs cweðende, "Þēs is mīn lēofa Sunu, þe mē wel līcað; ġehȳrað him."
  Again, after a course of years, he was, at his baptism, manifested to the world, when the Holy Ghost, in likeness of a dove, rested upon him, and the voice of the Father sounded loudly from heaven, thus saying, "This is my beloved Son who well pleaseth me; obey him."
form, character
- c. 992, Ælfric, "The Nativity of St. Andrew the Apostle"
  Ġif ðū leornian wille hū þæt ġewurðan mæġe, þonne undernim ðū leorning-cnihtes hīw, þæt þū ðās ġerȳnu leornian mæġe.
  If you wish to learn how that can be, then undertake the character of a disciple (literally “of a learning-boy”), to be able to learn this mystery.
shape
color
- Wonders of the East
  Þǣr beoð akende ǣmættan swā miċle swā hundas. Hī habbað fēt swylċe græshoppan, hī syndon rēades hīwes ⁊ blaces. Þā ǣmettan delfað gold up of eorðan fram foran nihte ōþ þa fīftan tīd dæġes.
  Ants are born there as big as dogs. They have feet like grasshoppers, and are red and black in color. The ants dig gold up from the earth from before the night until the fifth hour of the day.

Usage notes

While hīew is the expected outcome of Proto-Germanic *hiwją in the Early West Saxon dialect, the form hīw is much more common within the corpus, almost to the total exclusion of the expected form. As the Late West Saxon of Ælfric also exclusively uses the form hīw, and never *hȳw, it is likely that the EWS hīw form reflects a genuine, irregular sound change, predating the smoothing of the īe diphthong in LWS. This change is also seen in nīewe, as well as a similar change occuring for the suffix -sċiepe (though for the ie diphthong).

Declension

Strong a-stem:

	singular	plural
nominative	hīew	hīew
accusative	hīew	hīew
genitive	hīewes	hīewa
dative	hīewe	hīewum

Related terms

ġehīewian (“to form, pretend”)
hīewere (“hypocrite”)
hīewian (“to form, pretend”)
hīewlēas (“formless, colourless”)
hīewlīċ (“shapely”)

Descendants

Middle English: hewe
- English: hue
- Scots: hew, hu, hue