Word of the Day

: February 18, 2022

hew

verb HYOO

What It Means

Hew is commonly used in the phrase to hew to, meaning "to conform to or adhere to (something)." The word also means "to give shape to with or as if with an ax." Both hewed and hewn are used as past participles.

// The senator has always hewed closely to the agenda of his political party.

// The settlers hewed logs for building cabins.

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hew in Context

"While Michelan­gelo would later claim that he had raced back to Florence from Rome when the fledgling Florentine republic announced that it would be commissioning a new work to be hewn from a giant block of marble in its possession, the fact of the matter was that the block … had defied several generations of sculptors who had chipped away at its base...." — Victoria Coates, The National Review, 27 Dec. 2021

Did You Know?

Hew refers to shaping something with a tool (such as an ax), but what does that have to do with conforming or adhering to something? That use of the word was influenced by the phrase "to hew to the line." The "line" is the mark along the length of a log indicating where to chop in order to shape a beam. "Hewing to the line," literally, is cutting along the mark—adhering to it—until the side of the log is squared.