hew

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English hewen,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English hēawan (“to chop, hack, gash, strike with a cutting weapon”),^[5][2][6] a class VII strong verb, originally reduplicated,^[5][7] inherited from Proto-Germanic *hawwaną.^[5][8][9] Its cognates are Old Frisian hawa, Old Saxon hauwan, Middle Dutch hauwen, Dutch houwen, Old High German houwan, German hauen, Old Norse hǫggva, Swedish hugga and Danish hugge.^{[7][5][8][10]} The Germanic verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *kau- (“to hew, strike”),^[5][2][8] which is also the source of Lithuanian káuti (“to strike, forge”) and kovà (“battle”),^[7][11][3] Polish kuć (“to forge”),^[5] Latin cūdō (“to strike, beat”),^[5][3][4] caudex (“tree trunk”)^[8][10] and Middle Irish cuad (“to beat, fight”),^[5] and Klein and Merriam-Webster Unabridged add Tocharian A kot (“to split”).^[3][4] Further words from the same root in English are hay,^[7][12][13] and, for Klein, hoe and haggle.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To strike with a cutting weapon: as geheawan, about 725 in Barnhart's dating of Beowulf,^[8][14] and as hēawan before 900.^[8][15] The OED's earliest examples are from Old English: the Battle of Maldon for striking with a weapon, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for chopping or hacking.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Already in Old English the verb covered cutting to shape, felling wood, severing a part and making something by hewing, as well as striking with a weapon.^[7][6][16] Middle English added cutting down a person or animal with a sword, recorded from about 1400,^[7] and chopping something to pieces, recorded in the Wycliffite Bible.^[7] The forms changed as well: the old past tense héow fell together with the present stem in Middle English as hew, and a weak past tense hewede appeared in the 14th century and had replaced the strong form by 1500, while the participle hewn has never lost to hewed.^[7][5] Johnson (1755) defined the verb as to cut with an edged instrument, to chop, and to fell.^[17] In the north, miners' use made it the verb for working coal in Northumberland and Durham;^[18] in Cheshire it was used for digging marl and breaking hard salt,^[18] and in west Somerset for shaping with an axe.^[18] The American hew to the line, stick to a course, literally to cut evenly with an axe or saw, gave hew to "hold fast to", first recorded in 1891,^[8][5] a sense that seems to contradict the cutting one.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 725 – geheawan, in Beowulf.^[8]
• Old English – to strike with a cutting tool; to shape by cutting; to fell; to sever a part.^[7][16]
• c. 1175 – with down, to cut to the ground.^[7]
• probably before 1200 – the Middle English form hewen, in Layamon.^[8]
• 1382 – to chop into pieces, with asunder and the like.^[7]
• 14th century – the weak forms hewede and hewed.^[7][5]
• c. 1400 – to cut down a person or animal with a sword.^[7]
• 1596 – noun, an act of hewing, a cut or gash (obsolete by 1618).^[7]
• 1891 – hew to, to hold fast to.^[8][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cut or strike with heavy blows of an axe, sword or other sharp tool; to chop or hack.^[4][19][20]
2. To shape or make by such blows: They hewed a road through the granite ridge.^[4][19][2]
3. To cut down or fell, or to cut a part away from the rest: The crew hewed down the old elms.^[4][19][2]
4. To cut coal from the seam.^[4][7][20]
5. To deal cutting blows: He hewed at the rope with a blunt knife.^[4][16][21]
6. (North America) hew to: to conform or adhere strictly to a rule or principle.^[19][20][2]

Noun

1. (obsolete, 1596–1618) An act of hewing; a cut or gash.^[7][16][21]

Word family

• hewer
• hewable
• hewn
• rough-hew
• unhewed

Related words

• hay
• hoe
• haggle
• caudex
• codex
• incus
• hue

Usage notes

The past participle is hewed or hewn.^[19][4] Dictionary.com warns against confusing hew with hue and Hugh.^[15] In Devon and Cornwall a verb hew, also written hue, had a separate source in Old French huer (“to cry”): it meant to signal to fishing boats from the cliffs where the pilchards were.^[18]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ a b Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ Klaeber, Fr., ed. (1922), Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg, Boston: D. C. Heath
15. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
16. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ a b c d Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
19. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
20. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
21. ^ a b The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers