Hew

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Slava
Great Grand Panjandrum
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Hew

Postby Slava » Sat Jul 26, 2008 7:33 pm

To hack up, specificaly with a heavy cutting instrument, and make into a new form.

Or, to stick to the party line; walk the straight and narrow, etc.

'Twould be interesting to learn how this one came to be.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

Perry
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Postby Perry » Mon Jul 28, 2008 10:56 am

Thusly.
hew
O.E. heawan "to chop, hack, gash" (class VII strong verb; past tense heow, pp. heawen), earlier geheawan, from P.Gmc. *khawwanan (cf. O.N. hoggva, Du. houwen, Ger. hauen "to cut, strike, hew"), from PIE base *qau- "to strike, beat" (cf. O.C.S. kovo, Lith. kauju "to beat, forge;" L. cudere "to strike, beat;" M.Ir. cuad "beat, fight"). Weak pp. hewede appeared 14c. Seemingly contradictory sense of "hold fast, stick to" (in phrase hew to) developed from hew to the line "stick to a course," lit. "cut evenly with an axe or saw," first recorded 1891.
"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once. Lately it hasn't been working."
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