Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A migratory gull (Larus canus) that breeds in northern Eurasia and northwest North America.
  • intransitive verb To make a high-pitched, crying sound, as that of a cat.
  • noun A high-pitching crying sound, especially that of a cat.
  • noun A cage for hawks, especially when molting.
  • noun A secret place; a hideaway.
  • noun A group of buildings originally containing private stables, often converted into residential apartments.
  • noun A small street, alley, or courtyard on which such buildings stand.
  • intransitive verb To confine in or as if in a cage.
  • intransitive verb To molt. Used of a hawk.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The herb spignel.
  • noun The cry of a cat.
  • To change (the covering or dress); especially, to shed, as feathers; molt.
  • An obsolete or dialectal preterit of mow.
  • noun A cage for birds while mewing or molting; hence, any cage or coop for birds, especially for hawks.
  • noun Hence An inclosure; a close place; a place of retirement or confinement.
  • noun A place where fowls were confined for fattening.
  • noun plural A stable. See mews.
  • noun A dialectal variant of mow.
  • To shut up; confine, as in a cage or other inclosure; immure.
  • noun A gull; a sea-mew. See cut under gull.
  • To cry as a cat.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To shut up; to inclose; to confine, as in a cage or other inclosure.
  • noun A cage for hawks while mewing; a coop for fattening fowls; hence, any inclosure; a place of confinement or shelter; -- in the latter sense usually in the plural.
  • noun A stable or range of stables for horses; -- compound used in the plural, and so called from the royal stables in London, built on the site of the king's mews for hawks.
  • noun The common cry of a cat.
  • noun (Zoöl.) A gull, esp. the common British species (Larus canus); called also sea mew, maa, mar, mow, and cobb.
  • transitive verb To shed or cast; to change; to molt.
  • intransitive verb To cast the feathers; to molt; hence, to change; to put on a new appearance.
  • intransitive verb To cry as a cat.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete A prison, or other place of confinement.
  • noun obsolete A hiding-place; a secret store or den.
  • noun falconry A cage for hawks, especially while moulting.
  • noun falconry, in the plural A building or set of buildings where moulting birds are kept.
  • verb obsolete To shut away, confine, lock up.
  • verb of a bird To moult.
  • noun The crying sound of a cat; a meow.
  • verb of a cat To meow.
  • interjection A cat's cry.
  • noun obsolete A gull, seagull.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb utter a high-pitched cry, as of seagulls
  • verb cry like a cat
  • noun the sound made by a cat (or any sound resembling this)
  • noun the common gull of Eurasia and northeastern North America

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English meue, from Old English mǣw, mēu.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English meuen, of imitative origin.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English meue, from Old French mue, from muer, to molt, from Latin mūtāre, to change; see mei- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Anglo-Norman mue, muwe, and Middle French mue ("shedding feathers; cage for moulting birds; prison"), from muer ("to moult").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Onomatopoeic

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English mewe, from Old English mǣw, from Proto-Germanic *maihwaz, *maiwaz (“seagull”) (compare West Frisian meau, mieu, Dutch meeuw, German Möwe), from *maiwijanan 'to shout, mew' (compare Middle English mawen 'to shout, mew', Middle Dutch mauwen, Middle High German māwen); akin to Latvian maût 'to roar', Old Church Slavonic myjati 'to mew'.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word mew.

Examples

  • September 26th, 2005 at 1: 39 am boo hoo baby its not our fault you are useless im in mew nealand and it works for me anyone can build a computer its a lot easier than configering your windows system one would think took me all of 30 sec

    WinMX returns: Grazie P2PZone! 2005

  • The seagull is also known as the mew, likewise an imitative name.

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XXIII No 3 1997

  • [3] Beckett's French translation of Murphy gives the "mew" in West Brompton as "l'impasse de l'Enfant Jésus," introducing a Christian reference into the city grid.

    Beckett: Still Stirring Parks, Tim 2006

  • The critic Christopher Ricks has pointed out that "mew" rather than the more correct "mews" is in fact an archaic word for "cage."

    Beckett: Still Stirring Parks, Tim 2006

  • The cat goes around meekly, crying "mew," while the rest dance around her.

    Games For All Occasions Mary E. Blain

  • I again affirm that I need make no apology for attaching my name to that of one so worthy the esteem of his co-dogs, ay, and co-cats too; for in spite of the differences which have so often raised up a barrier between the members of his race and ours, not even the noblest among us could be degraded by raising a "mew" to the honour of such a thoroughly honest dog.

    The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too Alfred Elwes

  • As a rule, the gelded cat does not "mew" to make known his wants, but employs his voice for conversational purposes.

    Concerning Cats My Own and Some Others Helen M. Winslow

  • A starved kitten, which shapes out of nothing and is there complete and instantaneous at your feet -- ginger stripes, and a mew which is weak, but a veritable voice of the living -- is first

    Old Junk 1915

  • It gave a frightened "mew," but a single shake cut that short and would have ended Kitty's nine lives at once, had not the negro come to the rescue.

    Animal Heroes Ernest Thompson Seton 1903

  • The next morning, figure my horror! to hear a plaintive 'mew' outside my door.

    Selections from the Letters of Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle 1892

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Also to confine, as in a cage or pen.

    March 19, 2008

  • High Summer. He heard through the open door

    a buzzard mew on an aloof thermal.

    - Peter Reading, Ménage à Trois, from The Prison Cell & Barrel Mystery, 1976

    June 23, 2008