strew

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“
For yet but a little the dust on thy head * They shall strew, and thy life shall go down to the dead. "

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Definitions (10)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (4)

  1. transitive verb To spread here and there; scatter: strewing flowers down the aisle.
  2. transitive verb To cover (an area or a surface) with things scattered or sprinkled: "Italy . . . was strewn thick with the remains of Roman buildings” (Bernard Berenson).
  3. transitive verb To be or become dispersed over (a surface).
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Examples (50)

  • The drumming and the ululations reached new heights as Kinbel and I finally descended the offal-strew steps from our separate thrones so that we might complete our tryst inside the weird structure that had been created for us below. —  Asimov'sSF,June2008
  • To strew or spread (newly mown grass, for example) for drying. —  Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
  • I'm very certain that if I, joe citizen, did what these cops did then I'm sure I would have a high cash bail and would be awaiting trial for a strew of charges the Concord PD would certainly stack charges against me.
  • But Patroclus gave orders to his companions and female domestics to strew, with all haste, a thick couch for Phœnix; and they, obedient, spread a bed as he desired,--sheep-skins, coverlets, and the fine fabric of flax: there lay the old man, and awaited heavenly Morn. —  The Iliad of Homer (1873)
  • Their language is free from bad rhetoric; the reasoning is cogent, but there is an absence of emotion and imagination; they contain few quotable things, and no passages of commanding eloquence, such as strew the orations of Webster and Burke. —  Brief History of English and American Literature
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

reheat ·  coffeecupful ·  wheatmeal ·  lemon-juice ·  ghee ·  cinamon ·  allspice ·  ponderosa ·  bolter ·  cornel ·  tarragon ·  saltspoon

Used in the same contextWord Family

strew:   strewn
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English strewen, from Old English strēowian; see ster-2 in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Also archaically strow, formerly or dial. also straw; from Middle English strewen, strawen, streowen, from Anglo-Saxon streáwian, also streówian, *strewian (Somner) = Old Saxon strewian, strowian = OFries. strewa = Dutch strooijen = Old High German strewen, Middle High German ströuwen, strouwen, German streuen = Icelandic strā = Swedish Danish strö = Gothic (Moesogothic) straujan (preterit strawida), later Italian sdrajare, stretch, strew; cf. Old Bulgarian streti, strew, from Latin sternere (preterit stravi, past participle stratus), scatter (see stratum), = Greek στορεννύναι, στρωννύναι, strew, scatter, = Sanskrit √ star, scatter. The relation of the Teutonic to the variant L. and Greek roots is not wholly clear. Hence ult. straw, n. The three pronunciations strö, strō, strâ are due to the instability of the Anglo-Saxon vowel or diphthong before w, and its wavering in Middle English
 

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