HEW definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary (2025)

If you hew stone or wood, you cut it, for example with an axe.

[old-fashioned]

He felled, peeled and hewed his own timber. [VERB noun]

If something is hewn from stone or wood, it is cut from stone or wood.

[literary, old-fashioned]

...the rock from which the lower chambers and subterranean passageways have been hewn. [be V-ed + from/out of]

...medieval monasteries hewn out of the rockface. [VERB-ed]

[US]

For generations, they kept mostly to themselves, marrying within the community and hewing to tradition. [VERB to noun]

In its final form the legislation hews closely to the plan the administration unveiled a year ago. [VERB to noun]

1.

2.(transitive; often foll by out)

3.(tr; often foll by away, down, from, off, etc)

4.(intransitive; often foll by to) US and Canadian

(Department of) Health, Education, and Welfare (1953-79)

1.

2.

to make or shape by or as by cutting or chopping with an ax, etc.

often with out

3.

to chop (a tree) with an ax so as to cause it to fall

usually with down

4.

to make cutting or chopping blows with an ax, knife, etc.

5. US

to conform or adhere (to a line, rule, principle, etc.)

1.

to strike forcibly with an ax, sword, or other cutting instrument; chop; hack

2.

to make, shape, smooth, etc., with cutting blows

to hew a passage through the crowd

to hew a statue from marble

3.(usually fol. by away, off, out, from, etc.)

to sever (a part) from a whole by means of cutting blows

to hew branches from the tree

4.

to cut down; fell

to hew wood

trees hewed down by the storm

5.

to strike with cutting blows; cut

He hewed more vigorously each time

6.(usually fol. by to)

to hew to the tenets of one's political party

See Department of Health, Education, and Welfare