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Webster 1828 Edition


Rough-hew

ROUGH-HEW

,
Verb.
T.
ruf'-hew. [rough and hew.]
1.
To hew coarsely without smoothing; as, to rough-hew timber.
2.
To give the first form or shape to a thing.
There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.

Definition 2024


rough-hew

rough-hew

See also: roughhew

English

Verb

rough-hew (third-person singular simple present rough-hews, present participle rough-hewing, simple past rough-hewed, past participle rough-hewn)

  1. To cut or shape something roughly without finishing or tidying the surface. [from 16th c.]
    • 1601, William Shakespeare, Hamlet:
      Our indiscretion sometimes serues vs well, / When our deare plots do paule, and that should teach vs, / There's a Diuinity that shapes our ends, / Rough-hew them how we will.
    • 1870, J. Clifton Ward, Geological Magazine, VII.67:
      It seems to me, then, that one must either be a ‘marinist’ [...], or be a sub-äerialist, and believe than in Pre-Permian times the sea rough-hewed a block of country which the atmosphere has ever since been carving into its now complex and beautiful form.
    • 1915, George Wharton James, The Lake of the Sky:
      Its erosion is a constant process of alternate rough hewing and planing.

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