Meaning

9 senses

  1. A cage for hawks, especially while moulting.

  2. (in the plural)A building or set of buildings where moulting birds are kept.

  3. The crying sound of a cat; a meow, especially of a kitten.

    the sound made by a cat (or any sound resembling this)

  4. The crying sound of a gull or buzzard.

  5. (archaic, dialectal, poetic)A gull, seagull.

    Möwe

    ча́йкаčájka

  6. (obsolete)A prison, or other place of confinement.

  7. (obsolete)A hiding place; a secret store or den.

  8. (obsolete)A breeding-cage for birds.

  9. (obsolete)An exclamation of disapproval; a boo.

Examples

4 sentences

  1. The cats next door mew a lot.

    ruСоседские коты много мяукают. — marafon

    deDie Katzen nebenan miauen viel. — Pfirsichbaeumchen

    WarsawWill · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FR · C1Open on TatoebaReport a problem

  2. The cat continued to mew.

    ruКот продолжал мяукать. — Balamax

    shekitten · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FR · C1Open on TatoebaReport a problem

  3. The kitten mewed.

    shekitten · Tatoeba · CC0 · C1Open on TatoebaReport a problem

  4. Cats meow. Kittens mew.

    Miktsoanit · Tatoeba · CC0 · C1Open on TatoebaReport a problem

Translations

6 languages
Русский
By meaning 1
gull or seagull:
Deutsch
By meaning 1
gull or seagull:

Origin

From Middle English mewe, mowe, meau, from Old English mǣw (“seagull”), from Proto-West Ge

From Middle English mewe, mowe, meau, from Old English mǣw (“seagull”), from Proto-West Germanic *maiwī, from Proto-Germanic *mai(h)waz (“seagull”). See also West Frisian meau, miuw, Dutch meeuw, German Möwe (whence Polish mewa); akin to Latvian maût (“to roar”), Old Church Slavonic мꙑꙗти (myjati, “to mew”).

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

From Middle English mewen; onomatopoeic.

Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Forms

plural: mews
Singularmew
Pluralmews

regular

Synonyms

7 synonyms
Close in meaning
  • the common gull of Eurasia and northeastern North America:mew gullsea mewLarus canus
  • the sound made by a cat (or any sound resembling this):meowmiaoumiaowmiaul

Word family

3 related words
Derivedmew gullseamewsnow mew

See also

neighbours in the dictionary
metropolitanmettlemhmmiamicmica

Dictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.

mew — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto