Join free

shaw

English · Deutsch · Thesaurus

AI In plain words

Writing a short explanation…

Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.

shaw¹

  • /ʃɔː/ UK
  • /ʃɔ/ US
  • /ʃɑ/ cot caught merger

Sounds like Shaw, sure, shore (Received Pronunciation, pour–poor merger), shah (US, cot–caught merger, father–bother merger), zzxjoanw · Rhymes with -ɔː

Where it comes from

From Old English sċeaga, scaga. Cognate with Old Norse skógr (“forest, wood”), whence Danish skov (“forest”). Doublet of scaw.

noun shaws · shawe

  1. dated, dialectal A thicket; a small wood or grove. All this herd sire Lamorak / and on the morne sir lamorak took his hors and rode vnto the forest / and there he mette with two knyghtes houynge vnder the wood shawe
  2. Scotland The leaves and tops of vegetables, especially potatoes and turnips. Up here the hills were brave with the beauty and the heat of it, but the hayfield was still all a crackling dryness and in the potato park beyond the biggings the shaws drooped red and rusty already.

shaw²

  • /ʃɔː/ UK
  • /ʃɔ/ US
  • /ʃɑ/ cot caught merger

Sounds like Shaw, sure, shore (Received Pronunciation, pour–poor merger), shah (US, cot–caught merger, father–bother merger), zzxjoanw · Rhymes with -ɔː

Where it comes from

From an onomatopoeic/gibberishlike origin from Hollow Knight and its character Hornet while fighting her, and occasionally she plays one of multiple voice clips.

interjection shawe

  1. slang A kind of battle cry or warning.
  2. Censored spelling of shit.

Shaw³

Rhymes with -ɔː

Where it comes from

From shaw.

proper noun Shaws

  1. countable, uncountable An English topographic surname for someone who lived by a small wood or copse.
  2. countable, uncountable A village in Shaw cum Donnington parish and Newbury parish, West Berkshire district, Berkshire (OS red ref SU4868).
  3. countable, uncountable A town in Shaw and Crompton parish, Oldham borough, Greater Manchester (OS grid ref SD9308).
  4. countable, uncountable A hamlet in Oxenhope parish, City of Bradford, West Yorkshire (OS grid ref SE0234).
  5. countable, uncountable A village in Melksham Without parish, Wiltshire (OS grid ref ST8865).
  6. countable, uncountable A suburb and ward in west Swindon, Wiltshire (OS grid ref SU1185).
  7. countable, uncountable An unincorporated community in Neosho County, Kansas, United States.
  8. countable, uncountable A small city in Bolivar County and Sunflower County, Mississippi, United States.
  9. countable, uncountable A neighbourhood of Washington, D.C., United States.
  10. countable, uncountable A neighbourhood of St. Louis, Missouri.

Thesaurus

Closest in meaning: straw, sha, hele, shu, xiao, knox, cho, choe, zhao, hsiao, diallo, shao, urena, siew, copse, bosk

Translations

Every language

noun small wood

Françaisbosquet
DeutschDickicht

Talk about this word

Cite this
MLA

"shaw." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/shaw. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

shaw. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/shaw

Chicago

"shaw." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/shaw.

BibTeX
@misc{shaw_2026,
  title = {shaw},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/shaw},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}