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pew

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English pewe, also puwe and pywe,[2][3][4][5] borrowed from Old French puie (“parapet, balustrade, balcony, platform”), also poie and puy, recorded from the late 12th century,[6][7][2][5] from Latin podia, the plural of podium "elevated place, balcony",[7][8][5][9][2] from Ancient Greek πόδιον (pódion, “small foot, base”), a diminutive of πούς (poús, “foot”).[9][4][2][3] The plural podia was taken as a singular.[10] In Latin podium also meant the front balcony of a Roman theatre, where distinguished people sat.[7] The OED notes that the French word is apparently not recorded in Anglo-Norman, and that the English word was borrowed into Medieval Latin in Britain as puwa (1423).[6] Klein derives the French noun instead from the verb puier (“to prop, support”), from Vulgar Latin *podiō, a derivative of podium.[3] The word is thus the same as podium and distantly related to foot.[9][3] Johnson (1755) derived it from Dutch.[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

In a church, a place with seating, often raised and enclosed, reserved for a particular worshipper or group of worshippers: first recorded in a version of Langland's Piers Plowman (perhaps before 1387).[6][5][12] Etymonline glosses the early sense as a raised, bench-like seat for certain worshippers, such as ladies and important men.[7]

Semantic evolution

According to Ayto, the word first meant a raised enclosure in a church, a court and so on, rather like a pulpit or a dock; then an enclosed place in church set aside for particular people (now called a box pew); and in the 17th century a church bench.[9] The OED dates the sense "bench with a back, set in rows for the congregation" to 1631,[6][7] and is unsure whether the sense "raised desk for a preacher or reader" (1479) developed from the seat sense or the other way round, comparing the use of Latin podium for a raised choir in a church (6th century).[6] From 1558 a pew could also be a raised seat for officials, a rostrum for speakers, a stand for traders or a box in a theatre, uses the Shorter Oxford marks as obsolete by the late 17th century.[6][12] Johnson (1755) defined it as "a seat inclosed in a church", quoting Bacon on Sir Thomas More's wife sitting "in a pew".[11] From 1665 the pew stood for the place of the congregation as opposed to the pulpit, and later for the laity themselves.[6][12][13] In slang pew meant simply a seat or bunk (1883),[14] and the invitation take a pew, sit down, is recorded from 1898, in Belloc.[6][12] The verb, to shut up in a pew, is recorded from 1609, and to furnish a church with pews from 1686.[6][12]

Timeline

  • perhaps before 1387 – a reserved, often enclosed, seat in church, in Langland's Piers Plowman.[6][5]
  • 1406 – the spelling pewe.[5]
  • 1479 – a raised desk for a preacher or reader.[6][13]
  • 1558 – a raised seat for officials; a rostrum.[6][13]
  • 1607–1673 – figuratively, an allotted place (obsolete).[6]
  • 1609 – verb, to shut up in a pew.[6]
  • 1631 – a bench with a back, in rows for the congregation.[6][7]
  • 1665 – the place of the congregation, as opposed to the pulpit.[6]
  • 1686 – verb, to furnish with pews.[6]
  • 1883 – slang, a seat.[14]
  • 1898 – take a pew, sit down.[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. One of the long benches with backs set in rows in a church to seat the congregation: They sat in the front pew.[15][6][12]
  2. An enclosed compartment in a church reserved for a family or other small group; a box pew.[15][4][6]
  3. (informal, chiefly British) A seat, especially in take a pew, sit down.[15][6][12]
  4. The congregation or the laity, as opposed to the clergy or the pulpit.[12][6]
  5. (obsolete) A raised standing place or desk in a church for a preacher or reader.[12][6]
  6. (obsolete, 1607–1673) An allotted place or station.[6][12]

Verb

  1. To furnish a church with pews.[4][12][6]
  2. To shut someone in, or as if in, a pew.[4][12][6]

Word family

  • pewage
  • pewholder

Usage notes

Several minor words have the same spelling: in Scots, pew is a breath, a thin stream of air or smoke, or the slightest amount of something, an imitative word,[6][12][4][16] and in Newfoundland a pew is a long-handled pronged tool for moving fish from the boat to the wharf, from French pieu (“stake”).[6][12][4]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  9. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  11. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
  14. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  15. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  16. ^ 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)