Definition of "tew"
tew
verb
third-person singular simple present tews, present participle tewing, simple past and past participle tewed
To prepare (leather, hemp, etc.) by beating or working; to taw.
Quotations
yet wee found no townes, nor many of their houses, although we saw manie Indians, which are tall big boned men, all naked, saving they cover their privy parts with a blacke tewed skin, much like a Black-smithes apron, tied about their middle and betweene their legs behinde:
1602, M. John Brereton, Brereton's Briefe and True Relation of the Discoverie of the North Part of Virginia
(by extension) To beat; to scourge.
Quotations
On the shores which lie open to the East, the grass grows down to the water side, and they are the greener shores; but on the shores exposed to the West, the grass and trees are weather beaten and worn away, and the shore sides much tewed with the surge.
1813, James Burney, A Chronological History of the Discoveries in the South Sea Or Pacific Ocean, page 357
When the sand, mixed with wort upon the stone casting table, has been thoroughly pounded or tewed, by means of a short, thick, wooden roller, the workman places one of the boxes upon the moulding board, and also arranges thereon the models of the articles to be cast, or parts of the same, which must all be of such a shape as that they will admit of being withdrawn, without difficulty, from the sand.
1834, John Holland, A Treatise on the Progressive Improvement and Present State of the Manufacture in Metal, Volume 3, page 215
The edges of the table or board are surrounded by a ledge , in order to support the tewed stuff ; the table so previously prepared is filled up with the sand as high as the top of the ledge, which is in a moderately moistened state, and which must be pressed closely down upon the table in every part.
1839, Thomas Curtis, “Founding”, in The London encyclopaedia, page 493
Quotations
And then again in a mighty bustle he bandied it, slubbered it, hacked it, whittled it, wayed it, […] tugged it, tewed it, carried it, bedashed it, […] that it was ten thousand to one he had not structk the bottom of it out.
1894, Ainsworth Rand Spofford, Rufus Edmonds Shapley, “Rabelais Imitates Diogenes”, in The Library of Wit and Humor, Prose and Poetry, page 21
Quotations
Quotations
(UK, Scotland, obsolete, dialect) To tease; to vex or worry.
Quotations
but having received his orders early that morning from the trainer, accompanied with a warning not to suffer himself to be tewed (Yorkshire patois for worried) by anything Mr. Mellish might say, the sallow-complexioned lad walked about in the calm serenity of innocence
1863, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Aurora Floyd - Volume 1, page 201
After dinner uncle Joe made off to his piggeries; while aunt Dorothy fell asleep in a capacious old arm-chair by the fire, after making an apologetic remark to the effect that she was tired, and had been a good deal "tewed" that morning in the dairy. "Tewed," I understand, is Yorkshire for "worried."
1867, Belgravia - Volume 3, page 10
Quotations