noun The source or mainstay of vitality and strength. Often used in the plural: "Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue” (Izaak Walton).
A cord or tendon of the body. See tendon. He … was grete and lene and full of veynes and of senewes, and was also so grym a figure that he was dredefull for to be-holde. Merlin (E. E. T. S.), ii. 339.Cutting out the sinews of his hands and feet, he bore them off, leaving Jupiter behind miserably maimed and mangled. Bacon, Political Fables, viii.
A nerve. Compare aponeurosis. The feeling pow'r, which is life's root, Through ev'ry living part itself doth shed By sinews, which extend from head to foot, And, like a net, all o'er the body spread. Sir J. Davies, Immortal. of Soul, xviii.
Hence Figuratively, muscle; nerve; nervous energy; strength. Oppressed nature sleeps: This rest might yet have balm'd thy broken sinews.Shak., Lear, iii. 6. 105.You have done worthily; I have not seen, Since Hercules, a man of tougher sinews.Fletcher (and another), Two Noble Kinsmen, ii. 4.All the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd. Cowper, Task, ii. 32.
Early modern English also sinnew; from Middle Englishsinewe, synewe, synowe, synow, senewe, sinwe, senwe, sinue, from Anglo-Saxonsinu, seono, sionu (sinw-, sinew-) =OFries. sini, sine, sin =Middle Dutchsenuwe, senue, Dutchzenuw =Middle Low Germansene =Old High Germansenawa, senewa, senuwa, Middle High Germansenewe, senwe, sene, Germansehne =Icel, sin =Swedishsena =Danishsene =Gothic (Moesogothic) *sinawa (not recorded), a sinew; prob. Sanskritsnāva (for *sinava), a sinew; perhaps akin to Anglo-Saxonsāl =Old Saxonsēl =Old High GermanMiddle High GermanGreekseil =Icelandicseil =Gothic (Moesogothic) *sail (inferred from deriv. insailjan) =Old Bulgariansilo, a cord, rope, and to Greekἱμάς, a band; from a root *si, Lettishsinu, I bind, Skt, √ si (1st personpresentsinomi), bind.