Word of the Day

: November 11, 2015

dewy

adjective DOO-ee

What It Means

1 : moist with, affected by, or suggestive of dew

2 : innocent, unsophisticated

dewy in Context

The lawn was dewy and cool on our feet as we set off for a short barefoot walk just after sunrise.

"Listening to their greatest hits with the 5th Dimension and as a duo—the dewy confessions of everlasting love, the sunny songs of soft psychedelia—recalls a time in pop when innocence was still relatively easy to manufacture." — Rashod Ollison, The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Virginia), 2 Oct. 2015

Did You Know?

"And her faire deawy eies with kisses deare Shee ofte did bathe" (Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene). "I would these dewy teares were from the ground" (William Shakespeare, Richard III). "Till dewie sleep Oppress'd them" (John Milton, Paradise Lost). "Strengthen me, enlighten me … Thou dewy dawn of memory" (Alfred Tennyson, "Ode to Memory"). Such lines exemplify how the greats have poetically extended the characteristics of dewy grass to misty or crying eyes, as well as to things, like sleep, that affect people gently like forming dew, or to things, like memory, that gradually vanish like a morning's dew. In recent times, the adjective has often been used to describe the luminous complexions of models and starlets—an extension of the "suggestive of dew" meaning. It was not until the 20th century that people began to connect newly formed, undisturbed dew with freshness or purity and, in turn, with innocence and unsophistication, as in our second example sentence.