Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To spread here and there; scatter: strewing flowers down the aisle.
- v. To cover (an area or a surface) with things scattered or sprinkled: "Italy . . . was strewn thick with the remains of Roman buildings” ( Bernard Berenson).
- v. To be or become dispersed over (a surface).
- v. To spread (something) over a wide area; disseminate.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To scatter; spread loosely: said of dry, loose, separable filings: as, to strew seed in beds; to strew sand on the floor; to strew flowers over a grave.
- To cover in spots and patches here and there, as if by sprinkling or casting loosely about.
- To spread a broad; give currency to.
Wiktionary
- v. To distribute objects or pieces of something over an area, especially in a random manner.
- v. To cover, or lie upon, by having been scattered.
- v. transitive To spread abroad; to disseminate.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To scatter; to spread by scattering; to cast or to throw loosely apart; -- used of solids, separated or separable into parts or particles
- v. To cover more or less thickly by scattering something over or upon; to cover, or lie upon, by having been scattered
- v. To spread abroad; to disseminate.
WordNet 3.0
- v. spread by scattering (
- v. cover; be dispersed over
Etymologies
- Old English strewian. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English strewen, from Old English strēowian; see ster-2 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The word strew means to scatter -- as men scatter seed in sowing it.”
“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.”
“The most persuasive explanation is that the word comes from the Anglo-Saxon 'strew' meaning 'spread', a reference to the plant's ability to reproduce by sending out runners and layering, but there are many other tales in circulation including the idea that the berries used to be sold on straws in the manner of a fruity kebab.”
“With wild wood-leaves and weeds I ha 'strew'd his grave,”
“2722: With wild wood-leaues & weeds, I ha 'strew'd his graue”
“We saw a pink quartz arrowhead and a scraper on one strew of fire-cracked rock.”
“During the visit, as always, the site was spotless—no piles of rebar, no heaps of wood scraps, no mounds of dirt, no strew of nails and screws.”
“In my experience, the portion of this that most needs a wish of good luck is getting the kids (and possibly husband) to not strew everything around the house out of the groupings – so good luck!”
“Carefully lift the bird and strew the remaining herbs over the vegetables.”
The Guardian: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's climate-friendly recipes
“Members relished a soliloquy of Launce to his shoes, who spin his relatives as they bewail his depart for unfamiliar shoresin sharp contrariety to his dog Crab, who callously refuses to strew a tear (2.3).”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘strew’.
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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Philosophic , etymology
every major discipline has uniquely developed esoteric nomenclature to facilitate interdisciplinary dissemination
quale , qualia, elegy, tacet, lexicon, annunciate, caste, eros, contrive, purlicue, irony, venacular, dilapidate and 567 more...
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str-
strany, stragulum, strait, straggle, strand, strake, streak, stream, strawberry, streel, strawy, stratonic and 40 more...
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Mark
scrawl, blemish, spot, mar, damage, speckle, bespatter, splash, smirch, stain, tattoo, impress and 20 more...
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carolinacc's list
jettisoned, yearn, chrestomathy, catachresis, elation, gesundheit, ohne, tertium quid, iota, oscillation, argillous, flagrate and 67 more...
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Filter 1
Hard words level 1
besotted, altricial, consecrate, consternate, desuetude, detractor, dissolute, divisive, emaciated, enamored, ensconce, garishly and 76 more...
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maygra
apropos, advantageous, perception, discombobulated, adumbrate, apogee, perihelion, mortmain, solitudinous, mediastinus, asumbrative, traveler and 498 more...
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Quaintnesses
For those who wish no words were ever forgotten
opprobrium, tedium, encomium, odium, ire, enmity, beguile, wile, brazen, popinjay, squit, hoity-toity and 1161 more...
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Vocab ##5
appint, monarch, counterpart, muse, bestow, unwitting, aghast, admonish, wage, decree, cavalry, phalanx and 126 more...
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Vocab
Words that I come across, and go blank, or want to clarify.
nefarious, edifice, malevolent, ostensible, folderol, bauble, livid, amnesty, calculus, saddlery, maisonette, cuisse and 423 more...
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parlerodermime's Words
loquacious, orange, lackadaisical, rhythm, esoterrorist, contrary, enchanted, extraordinary, nymph, chatter, incessant, time and 168 more...
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miltonic
liberty, froth-becurlèd, host, huge-bellied, aghast, rills, gladsom, wrathfull, ordain, thunder-clasping, ruddy, warble and 264 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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GRE 3500 S
saccharine, sacrilegious, sacrosanct, sagacious, sage, salient, salutary, salvo, sanctimonious, sanguine, sap, sardonic and 138 more...
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Underworld
Don DeLillo
roily, reverie, slidy, bandido, mohair, brilliantine, stupe, juke step, jowly, juke, wicket, quidbit and 391 more...
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for strew.
milosrdenstvi I suppose the simple past is strewed and p.p. strewn. I'm sure I've misused this in my time. I tend to favour irregular constructions. Oct 10, 2011
yarb The legions of Armenia supported their fame in arms; but they were oppressed by the irresistible weight of the hostile multitude: the left wing of the Romans was thrown into disorder and the field was strewed with their mangled carcasses.
- Gibbon, Decline and Fall, XXVI. iii. Jul 1, 2009
carolinacc "it strewed the whole of the north-western coast of Europe with wrecks" - Leigh Hunt; Autobiography Dec 21, 2008