Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use hew in a sentence

19 example sentences · verb, noun

Hew means to chop away at; to whittle down; to mow down. Example: “The temple was hewed from the living rock.”

Examples of hew by meaning

verbTo chop away at; to whittle down; to mow down.

  • Undaunted he continued his experiments, finding that he could hack and hew splinters of wood from the table and chairs with this new toy.1912 October, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as...

verbTo shape; to form.

  • to hew out a sepulchre
  • In 1974, I spoke of poetry as “hewn from the commonest living substance” as a doorframe is hewn of wood.2003 April 26, Adrienne Rich, “Hewn from the living words”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
  • Constructed by a firm named Posiva, Onkalo has been hewn into the island of Olkiluoto, a brief bridge’s length off Finland’s south-west coast.2022 December 15, Samanth Subramanian, “Dismantling Sellafield: the epic task of shutting down a nuclear site”, in The Guardian

verbTo act according to, to conform to; usually construed with to.

  • Few men measured up to his standard of righteousness; he hewed to the line.1905, Albert Osborn, John Fletcher Hurst: A Biography, Jennings & Graham, page 428
  • Inside the stories usually hewed to a consistent formula: no matter how outlandish and weird the circumstances, in the end everything had to have a natural, if not plausible, ending—frequently, though not always, involving a mad scientist.1998, Frank M. Robinson, Lawrence Davidson, Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines, Collectors Press, Inc., →ISBN, page 103
  • "For a long time I hewed that line," he told CBS News in June.2013 October 2, Alex Pappademas, “Leuqes! LEUQES! LEUQES! – The Shining sequel and what it says about Stephen King”, in Grantland.com...

More sentences with hew

  • The temple was hewed from the living rock.From the entry living rock
  • When the masked stranger hew with his axe, the baker's head did split in twain and his body fell like a lump to the ground in turn.From the entry in twain
  • Hew Choy Leung and Paul Matsudaira were the NUS and MIT coordinators for this joint program.2016, Lim Hock, Phua Kok Khoo and Tan Bernard, 50 Years of Science in Singapore, World Scientific, page 197. From the entry Matsudaira
  • Its erosion is a constant process of alternate rough hewing and planing.1915, George Wharton James, The Lake of the Sky. From the entry rough-hew
  • The American Ivy Society hewed closely to the theme, exhibiting only hederas that come from Ireland or have an Irish name.2007 March 8, Jan Benzel, “Philadelphia Calls Off Winter for a Week”, in New York Times. From the entry hedera
  • There are other kinds of hewing also adopted in dressing of stone, such as scabbled, striped, grooved, fluted and piended.1917, Frederick Thomas Hodgson, Builders' Reliable Estimator and Contractors' Guide: A Complete Guide for Pricing All Builders' Work…. From the entry piended
  • If he does, there is a chance for a limited, and relatively undamaging, ruling that hews closely to the facts of this case.2009 September 11, “The Court and Campaign Finance”, in New York Times. From the entry undamaging
  • Lucien wrote to Joseph: in a Revolution, it is essential to hew to a line, not "follow the wind" or "suddenly change sides."2004, Steven Englund, Napoleon: A Political Life, →ISBN, page 52. From the entry follow the wind
  • A hundred yards down the road a splendid en-tout-cas tennis court, with a pleasant small lean-to for spectators, was hewn out of the forest.2002, Lewis Spence, A Mountain View, page 155. From the entry en-tout-cas
  • Hewing to this principle, I walked along the lakeshore at Bosque del Apache as the stragglers of a flock of Sandhill Cranes made their morning departure.2021, Peter Cavanagh, “9. Cranes”, in 100 Flying Birds: Photographing the Mechanics of Flight, →ISBN, page 218. From the entry hewing
  • In the Proverbs of Solomon, too, Wisdom, an ancient foretype of the Church, is said to have 'built herself a house, she hath hewn her out seven pillars.'2010, The City of God, Books XVII–XXII (The Fathers of the Church, Volume 24). From the entry foretype
  • Freud’s itinerary in the novel hews neatly to what he and his colleagues really did on their trip to the U.S.: They visited Chinatown and Central Park and the Met.2022 September 7, Gillian Brassil, “The Real Lives of Early 20th-Century Celebrities, as Depicted in ‘Ragtime’”, in T: The New York Times…. From the entry Chinatown

Meaning of hew

  1. verb To chop away at; to whittle down; to mow down.
  2. verb To shape; to form.
  3. verb To act according to, to conform to; usually construed with to.

Full definition of hew

Questions about hew in a sentence

How do you use hew in a sentence?
Hew is used as a verb and noun. For example: “The temple was hewed from the living rock.”
What is a short sentence with hew?
“to hew out a sepulchre”
What does hew mean?
Hew means to chop away at; to whittle down; to mow down.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hew (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use hew in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/hew. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.