yew
pronunciation
How to pronounce yew in British English:
UK [ju:]
How to pronounce yew in American English:
US [joo]
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- Noun:
- wood of a yew; especially the durable fine-grained light brown or red wood of the English yew valued for cabinetwork and archery bows
- any of numerous evergreen trees or shrubs having red cup-shaped berries and flattened needlelike leaves
Word Origin
- yew (n.)
- evergreen tree of temperate Europe and Asia, Old English iw, eow "yew," from Proto-Germanic *iwo- (cognates: Middle Dutch iwe, Dutch ijf, Old High German iwa, German Eibe, Old Norse yr), from PIE *ei-wo- (cognates: Old Irish eo, Welsh ywen "yew"), perhaps a suffixed form of root *ei- (2) "reddish, motley, yellow." OED says French if, Spanish iva, Medieval Latin ivus are from Germanic (and says Dutch ijf is from French); others posit a Gaulish ivos as the source of these. Lithuanian jeva likewise is said to be from Germanic. The tree symbolizes both death and immortality, being poisonous as well as long-lived. Reference to its wood as well-suited to making bows dates from c. 1400.
Example
- 1. His blood soaked into the yew 's branches .
- 2. The yew clasped him tight in her bare , flayed arms .
- 3. Then she approached the yew tree , knelt , and laid fremos 's bones down gently in the clover .
- 4. Still neiros wept , but we could not see him now , so close did the yew hold him .
- 5. The oaks swayed back and forth ; the yew hunched her shoulders .