mew

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See also: Mew

English

Pronunciation

  • Lua error in Module:parameters at line 290: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "RP" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. IPA(key): /mjuː/
  • Lua error in Module:parameters at line 290: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "GA" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. IPA(key): /mju/
  • Rhymes: -juː
  • Homophone: mu

Etymology 1

From Middle English mewe, mowe, meau, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old English Lua error in Module:parameters at line 290: Parameter "sc" should be a valid script code; the value "Latinx" is not valid. See WT:LOS., from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Proto-Germanic *maihwaz, *maiwaz (“seagull”) (compare West Frisian meau, mieu, Dutch meeuw, German Möwe), from *maiwijaną (“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 мꙑꙗти (myjati, “to mew”).

Noun

mew (plural mews)

  1. (archaic, poetic) A gull, seagull.
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
      A daungerous and detestable place, / To which nor fish nor fowle did once approch, / But yelling Meawes, with Seagulles hoarse and bace […]
    • 1954, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring:
      From helm to sea they saw him leap, / As arrow from the string, / And dive into the water deep, / As mew upon the wing.
Translations

Etymology 2

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

Noun

mew (plural mews)

  1. (obsolete) A prison, or other place of confinement.
  2. (obsolete) A hiding place; a secret store or den.
  3. (obsolete) A breeding-cage for birds.
  4. (falconry) A cage for hawks, especially while moulting.
    • Template:RQ:RBrtn AntmyMlncly, 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.
  5. (falconry, in the plural) A building or set of buildings where moulting birds are kept.

Verb

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

  1. (archaic) To shut away, confine, lock up.
    • c. 1592 William Shakespeare, Richard III, Act I, Scene 1,[1]
      More pity that the eagle should be mew’d,
      While kites and buzzards prey at liberty.
    • c. 1596 John Donne, “Elegie XX: Loves Warre,” in Charles M. Coffin (ed.), The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne, New York: Modern Library, p. 84,[2]
      To mew me in a Ship, is to inthrall
      Mee in a prison, that weare like to fall;
    • 1693, John Dryden (translator), The Satires of Juvenal, London: Jacob Tonson, Satire 1, p. 10,[3]
      […] Nay some have learn’d the trick
      To beg for absent persons; feign them sick,
      Close mew’d in their Sedans, for fear of air:
    • 1748, Tobias Smollett, chapter 50, in The Adventures of Roderick Random.:
      When it came to his turn to mention Sir John Sparkle, he represented him as a man of an immense estate and narrow disposition, who mewed up his only child, a fine young lady, from the conversation of mankind, under the strict watch and inspection of an old governante, who was either so honest, envious, or insatiable, that nobody had been as yet able to make her a friend, or get access to her charge, though numbers attempted it every day […]
    • 1928, Virginia Woolf, Orlando: A Biography, Penguin, 1942, Chapter 5, p. 163,[4]
      […] it was all very well for Orlando to mew herself in her house at Blackfriars and pretend that the climate was the same […]
  2. (of a bird) To moult.
    The hawk mewed his feathers.
    • 1700, John Dryden, Fables Ancient and Modern, London: Jacob Tonson, “Cinyras and Myrrha, Out of the Tenth Book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses,” p. 184,[5]
      Nine times the moon had mewed her horns […]
  3. (of a bird, obsolete) To cause to moult.
  4. (of a deer, obsolete) To shed antlers.

Etymology 3

Onomatopoeic.

Noun

mew (plural mews)

  1. The crying sound of a cat; a meow.
  2. The crying sound of a gull.
  3. (obsolete) An exclamation of disapproval; a boo.
Translations
crying sound of a cat — see meow

Verb

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

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

Interjection

mew

  1. A cat's cry.
  2. A gull's cry.
  3. (archaic) An exclamation of disapproval; boo.

Anagrams

Middle English

Noun

mew

  1. Alternative form of mewe (“cage”)

Polish

Pronunciation

Noun

mew f

  1. genitive plural of mewa

Yurok

Noun

mew

  1. widower
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