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DEW

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dew¹

  • /d͡ʒuː/
  • /djuː/
  • /duː/
  • /dɪu̯/ Canada, Wales

Sounds like due, do, doo (yod-dropping), Jew (yod-coalescence)

Where it comes from

From Middle English dew, from Old English dēaw (“dew”), from Proto-West Germanic *dauw, from Proto-Germanic *dawwaz, *dawwą (“dew, moisture”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewh₂- (“smoke, haze”).

Cognate with German Tau, Dutch dauw and Afrikaans dou. Doublet of dag.

noun dews

  1. uncountable Any moisture from the atmosphere condensed by cool bodies upon their surfaces.
  2. uncountable Moisture in the air that settles on plants, etc in the morning or evening, resulting in drops. And Gideon said vnto God, If thou wilt saue Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said, Beholde, I will put a fleece of wooll in the floore: and if the deaw be on the fleece onely, and it bee drie vpon all the earth beside, then shall I know that thou wilt saue Israel by my hande, as thou hast said. And
  3. countable An instance of such moisture settling on plants, etc. There was a heavy dew this morning.
  4. countable, figuratively, uncountable Anything that falls lightly and in a refreshing manner. the golden dew of sleep
  5. countable, figuratively, uncountable An emblem of morning, or fresh vigour. Thy people ſhalbe willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holineſſe from the wombe of the morning: thou haſt the dew of thy youth.

dew²

  • /d͡ʒuː/
  • /djuː/
  • /duː/
  • /dɪu̯/ Canada, Wales

Sounds like due, do, doo (yod-dropping), Jew (yod-coalescence)

Where it comes from

From Middle English dewe, dewen, from Old English *dēawian, from Proto-West Germanic *dauwēn, from Proto-Germanic *dawwāną. Cognates include Saterland Frisian daue, German tauen and Dutch dauwen.

verb dews · dewing · dewed

  1. transitive To wet with, or as if with, dew; to moisten. The grasses grew / A little ranker since they dewed them so.
  2. intransitive To deposit dew. The former [substances extremely attentuated, or in a filamentous and downly state] collect dew copiously, while the latter [solids] so rarely indicate its presence, even when it is dewing freely on contiguous substances, that some observers have doubted whether it ever happened, and have been dispo

DEW³

noun

  1. abbreviation, acronym, uncountable Acronym of Distant Early Warning.Distant Early Warning

noun DEWs

  1. abbreviation, initialism Initialism of directed-energy weapon.directed-energy weapon

Dew⁴

proper noun Dews

  1. countable, uncountable A surname.
  2. countable, uncountable An unincorporated community in Freestone County, Texas, United States.

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