Definify.com
Webster 1828 Edition
Rough-hew
ROUGH-HEW
,Verb.
T.
1.
To hew coarsely without smoothing; as, to rough-hew timber.2.
To give the first form or shape to a thing. There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.
Definition 2024
rough-hew
rough-hew
See also: roughhew
English
Verb
rough-hew (third-person singular simple present rough-hews, present participle rough-hewing, simple past rough-hewed, past participle rough-hewn)
- To cut or shape something roughly without finishing or tidying the surface. [from 16th c.]
- 1601, William Shakespeare, Hamlet:
- Our indiscretion sometimes serues vs well, / When our deare plots do paule, and that should teach vs, / There's a Diuinity that shapes our ends, / Rough-hew them how we will.
- 1870, J. Clifton Ward, Geological Magazine, VII.67:
- It seems to me, then, that one must either be a ‘marinist’ [...], or be a sub-äerialist, and believe than in Pre-Permian times the sea rough-hewed a block of country which the atmosphere has ever since been carving into its now complex and beautiful form.
- 1915, George Wharton James, The Lake of the Sky:
- Its erosion is a constant process of alternate rough hewing and planing.
- 1601, William Shakespeare, Hamlet: