thew

Examples of thew in a sentence

• Would'ſt thou afford him to me for a guard / Or ſweeper of my ſtalls, or to ſupply / My kids with leaves, he ſhould on bulkier thewes / Supported ſtand, though nouriſh'd but with whey.1791, Homer, “[The Odyssey.] Book XVII.”, in W[illiam] Cowper, transl., The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Translated into Blank Verse, […]...
• [M]y fellow traveller, to judge by his thewes and sinews, was a man who might have set danger at defiance with as much impunity as most men.1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter III, in Rob Roy. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for...
• [T]hou hast some days yet to rest here and grow stout, for I would not have thee present thyself with a visage of chalk to a man who values his kind mainly by their thews and their sinews.1843, Edward Bulwer[-]Lytton, “Master Marmaduke Nevile Fears for the Spiritual Weal of His Host and Hostess”, in The Last of the Barons...
• All round, her unpanelled, open bulwarks were garnished like one continuous jaw, with the long sharp teeth of the sperm whale, inserted there for pins, to fasten her old hempen thews and tendons to.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Ship”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers...

Forms of thew

Origin of thew

From Middle English theu, thew (“way of behaving towards others, bearing, manners; habit, practice; good manners, courtesy; characteristic act; characteristic, trait; custom, tradition; established rule, ordinance; injunction; moral character; (in the plural) set of moral principles, morals; moral quality, virtue or vice; might, power, strength”) [and other forms] (often in the plural form theus, thewes), from Old English þēaw (“general practice of a community, custom, usage; mode of conduct, behaviour, manner; (in the plural) customs, virtue”) [and other forms], from Proto-West Germanic *þauw, from Proto-Germanic *þawwaz (“custom; habit”); further etymology uncertain, tentatively identified by the Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen (Etymological Dictionary of Old High German) as a reflex of an s-less variant of Proto-Indo-European *(s)tāu-, *(s)te- (“to stand; to place”), from *steh₂- (“to stand (up)”). Cognates * Old Frisian thāw * Old High German dau, thau (“coercion; discipline; tuition”) * Old Saxon thau (“custom, usage; habit”)

From Middle English theuen, thewe (“to instruct in morals or values; to teach, train”) [and other forms], from theu, thew (noun) (see etymology 1) + -en (suffix forming the infinitives of verbs).

From Middle English thew (“thrall, slave”).

Words formed from thew

• thewed
• thewedly
• thewful
• thewless
• thewness
• thewsome
• thewy

Words that rhyme with thew

• Waterloo
• do
• blue
• screw
• shoe
• endue
• Peru
• through
• crew
• view
• new
• true

Questions about thew

What does thew mean?

Thew means an attractive physical attribute; also, physical, mental, or moral strength or vigour.

How do you use thew in a sentence?

Would'ſt thou afford him to me for a guard / Or ſweeper of my ſtalls, or to ſupply / My kids with leaves, he ſhould on bulkier thewes / Supported ſtand, though nouriſh'd but with whey.

What part of speech is thew?

Thew can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.

How do you pronounce thew?

Thew is pronounced /θjuː/ (UK).

What is the plural of thew?

The plural of thew is thews.