This week's theme
Homonyms

This week's words
quiff
gird
mew
feral
bole

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(myoo)

MEANING:

noun:
1. A cage for hawks, especially while molting.
2. A place for retiring or hiding.
3. In the UK, as mews, stables with living quarters. Also, a row of apartments converted from stables.

verb tr.: 4 To confine.
verb intr.: 5. To molt.

noun:
6. The high-pitched sound of a cat.
7. The characteristic sound of a gull.
8. A seagull (Larus canus).

ETYMOLOGY:

For 1-5: From Old French muer (to molt), from Latin mutare (to change). Ultimately from the Indo-European root mei- (to change or move) that has also given us commute, mutual, migrate, common, mistake, immune, and excommunicate. Earliest documented use: 1375.
For 6-7: Of imitative origin. Earliest documented use: 1325.
For 8: From Old English maew. Earliest documented use: before 12th c.

USAGE:

"They set him free the last day of October, after he had been mewed up for a month."
Lucy Montgomery; Anne of Ingleside; George G. Harrap & Co; 1939.

"Up above two falcons were mewing against the brilliant blue of the sky."
Robert Twigger; Dr Ragab's Universal Language; Picador; 2009.

See more usage examples of mew in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: