Word.ws English Dictionary

daw

UK/dɔː//dɑː/

daw noun: a western jackdaw, Coloeus monedula, a passerine bird in the crow family (Corvidae), more commonly called jackdaw.

Noun (1)

daw (plural daws)

  1. A western jackdaw, Coloeus monedula, a passerine bird in the crow family (Corvidae), more commonly called jackdaw.
    • The loud daw, his throat displaying, draws
      The whole assembly of his fellow daws.a. 1687, Edmund Waller, To Mr Killigrew
    • […] But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
      For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
  2. (obsolete) An idiot, a simpleton; fool.
    • Therefore to make complaynt
      Of such mysadvysed
      Parsons and dysgysed,
      Thys boke we have devysed, […]
      No good preest to offend,
      But suche dawes to amend, […]c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, →OCLC, page 62, lines 20–23
    • A kind of choughs, Or thievish daws, sir, that have pick'd my purse Of eight score and ten pounds within these five weeks1610 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, The Alchemist, London: […] Thomas Snodham, for Walter Burre, and are to be sold by Iohn Stepneth, […], published 1612, →OCLC, (please specify the Internet...

Verb (1)

daw (third-person singular simple present daws, present participle dawing, simple past and past participle dawed)

  1. (obsolete outside Scotland) To dawn.
  2. (obsolete) To wake (someone) up.
    • ANd whanne the Quene herd them saye soo
      she felle to the erthe in a dede swoune
      and thenne syr Bors took her vp
      and dawed her
      & whanne she was awaked she kneled afore the thre knyghtes
      and helde vp bothe their handes and besoughte them to seke hym
      And when the queen heard them say so she fell to...1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter 10, in Le Morte Darthur, book XI
  3. (obsolete) To daunt; to terrify.

Noun (2) capitalized: DAW

DAW (plural DAWs)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of digital audio workstation.

Verb (2) capitalized: DAW

DAW

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of dispense as written.

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Daw

Daw

  1. A surname transferred from the given name.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Daw

Daw

  1. (Myanmar) honorific title for older women
    • Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

daw meaning in Malayalam

daw in Malayalam

ഡാവ്

Synonyms of daw

Forms of daw

Noun
pluraldaws
pluralDAWs
Verb
third-person singular presentdaws
present participledawing
past participledawed
pastdawed

Plural of daw: daws

Origin of daw

From Middle English dawe, from Old English *dāwe, from Proto-West Germanic *dāhwā. Cognate with German Dahle, Dohle, dialectal Tach.

From Middle English dawen, from Old English dagian (“to dawn”), from Proto-West Germanic *dagēn, from Proto-Germanic *dagāną (“to become day, dawn”), from *dagaz (“day”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰegʷʰ- (“to burn”). More at day, dawn.

* As an English surname, from a Middle English short form of David. Also a nickname from the (jack)daw. Compare Davey, Dakin. * Also as an English surname, from a rhyming pet form of Raw, a name related to Rauf; compare Ralph, Rawe, Rawson, Dawkins, Dawson. * As an Arabic surname, from ضوء (“light”). * As an Irish surname, from Ó Deaghaidh (literally “descendant of Deaghadh”), from deag (“good”) + ádh (“fate”), comparable to Goodwin.

Words formed from daw

Phrases with daw

Words that rhyme with daw

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about daw

What does daw mean?
Daw means a western jackdaw, Coloeus monedula, a passerine bird in the crow family (Corvidae), more commonly called jackdaw.
What is daw in Malayalam?
Daw in Malayalam is ഡാവ്. See Daw meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is daw?
Daw can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce daw?
Daw is pronounced /dɔː/ (UK).
What is the plural of daw?
The plural of daw is daws.

Words near daw in the dictionary

  1. Davydovs
  2. Davyhulme
  3. davyne
  4. davys
  5. davyum
  6. daw
  7. dawa
  8. dawadawa
  9. dawah
  10. Dawahon
  11. Dawahongnewa

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: daw (page history and authors); DAW (page history and authors); Daw (page history and authors); daw (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-daw.ogg.

Cite this entry: “daw.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/daw. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.