Definition of "thew"
thew1
noun
plural thews
(archaic, chiefly in the plural, also figuratively)
An aspect of the body which indicates physical strength; hence, muscle and/or sinew; muscular development.
Quotations
[C]are I for the limbe, the thevves, the ſtature, bulke and big aſſemblance of a man: giue me the ſpirit […]
c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Second Part of Henrie the Fourth, […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600, [Act III, scene ii]
[…] Romans novv / Haue Thevves, and Limbes, like to their Anceſtors; / But vvoe the vvhile, our Fathers mindes are dead, / And vve are gouern'd vvith our Mothers ſpirits, / Our yoake, and ſufferance, ſhevv vs VVomaniſh.
1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene iii], page 113, column 1
For nature creſſant does not grovve alone / In thevvs and bulkes, but as this temple vvaxes, / The invvard ſervice of the minde and ſoule / Grovves vvide vvithal, […]For a human being's vital functions, increasing, do not grow alone / In physical development and bulk, but as this "temple" [i.e., the body] waxes, / The inward operation of the mind and soul / Grows wide with them, […]
c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: […] I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604, [Act I, scene iii]
Would'ſt thou afford him to me for a guard / Or ſweeper of my ſtalls, or to ſupply / My kids with leaves, he ſhould on bulkier thewes / Supported ſtand, though nouriſh'd but with whey.
1791, Homer, W[illiam] Cowper, transl., “[The Odyssey.] Book XVII.”, in The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Translated into Blank Verse, […], volume II, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], page 397, lines 269–272
[M]y fellow traveller, to judge by his thewes and sinews, was a man who might have set danger at defiance with as much impunity as most men. He was strong, and well-built; and, judging from his gold-laced hat and cockade, seemed to have served in the army, or, at least, to belong to the military profession in one capacity or other.
1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter III, in Rob Roy. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, page 60
[T]hou hast some days yet to rest here and grow stout, for I would not have thee present thyself with a visage of chalk to a man who values his kind mainly by their thews and their sinews.
1843, Edward Bulwer[-]Lytton, “Master Marmaduke Nevile Fears for the Spiritual Weal of His Host and Hostess”, in The Last of the Barons, London; New York, N.Y.: George Routledge and Sons […], book III (In which the History Passes from the King’s Court to the Student’s Cell, […]), page 100
All round, her unpanelled, open bulwarks were garnished like one continuous jaw, with the long sharp teeth of the sperm whale, inserted there for pins, to fasten her old hempen thews and tendons to. Those thews ran not through base blocks of land wood, but deftly travelled over sheaves of sea-ivory.Used figuratively to refer to ropes.
1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Ship”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, page 77
He traveling with me needs the best blood, thews, endurance, / None may come to the trial till he or she bring courage and health, / Come not here if you have already spent the best of yourself, / Only those may come who come in sweet and determin'd bodies, / No diseas'd person, no rum-drinker or venereal taint is permitted here.
1856, Walt Whitman, “Song of the Open Road”, in Leaves of Grass […], Philadelphia, Pa.: David McKay, publisher, […], published 1892, stanza 10, page 125
Still, clad in your mail of ices, / Thigh of granite and thew of steel— / Heedless, alike, of pomp or parting, / Ah, Teneriffe! / I'm kneeling still.
c. 1863, Emily Dickinson, “[Part 5: The Single Hound] XXXV”, in Martha Dickinson Bianchi and Alfred Leete Hampson, editors, The Poems of Emily Dickinson, centenary edition, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, and Company, published November 1930, page 234
He was pitched to his death at a blow, / For all his dreadnought breast and braids of thew: […]
1875–1876, Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Wreck of the Deutschland”, in Robert Bridges, editor, Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Now First Published […], London: Humphrey Milford, published 1918, stanza 16, page 16
A peculiar double of his was sole inhabitant in this tilt of memory: Fortune’s elf child and disinherited darling, young and randy and more a Jolly Jack Tar than anyone human could conceivably be; thews and chin taut against a sixty-knot gale with a well-broken-in briar clenched in the bright defiant teeth; […]
1960 March 16, Thomas Pynchon, “Low-lands”, in Slow Learner: Early Stories, Boston, Mass., Toronto, Ont.: Little, Brown and Company, published 1984, pages 59–60
Litha's moon gleams high o'er the tallest oak, / Ancient king in this sylvan court of elm, ash and yew. / The wood-spirits watch from gnarled bough and bole, / As I pull two Mercian shafts from my bloodied thews.
1998 November 2, Byron Roberts, Jonny Maudling, Chris Maudling (lyrics and music), “A Tale from the Deep Woods”, in Battle Magic, performed by Bal-Sagoth
(obsolete, chiefly in the plural)
A way of behaving; hence, a characteristic, a trait.
Quotations
A man of proof / Was Urien in his day; thought worthiest, / In martial thewes and manly discipline, / To train the sons of Owen.
1805, Robert Southey, “Canto XVIII”, in Madoc, London: […] [F]or Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and A[rchibald] Constable and Co, […], by James Ballantyne, […], part II (Madoc in Aztlan), page 362
(specifically) A good characteristic or habit; a virtue.
Quotations
This poeticall licence is a ſhrewde fellow, and couereth many faults in a verſe, […] and to conclude it turkeneth all things at pleaſure, for example, ydone for done, adowne for downe, orecome for ouercome, tane for taken, power for powre, heauen for heavn, thewes for good partes or good qualities, and a numbre of whiche were but tedious and needleſſe to rehearſe, ſince your owne iudgement and readyng will ſoone make you eſpie ſuch aduantages.]
; reprinted in Edward Arber, editor, 1. Certayne Notes of Instruction in English Verse. 1575. […] (English Reprints; vol. 3, no. 11), large paper edition, London: J. & W. Rider, 1869 October 1, paragraph 12, page 37