shew

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ʃoʊ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ʃəʊ/

  • Audio (Southern England)

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• Rhymes: -əʊ

shew (third-person singular simple present shews, present participle shewing, simple past shewed, past participle shewn or shewed or (obsolete) shewen)

1. Archaic spelling of show.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 12:1, column 2:

     NOw the Lord had ſaid vnto Abram, Get thee out of thy countrey, and from thy kinred, and from thy fathers houſe, vnto a land that I will ſhew thee.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Ruth 2:19, column 1:

     And ſhee ſhewed her mother in lawe with whom ſhee had wrought, and ſaid, The mans name with whom I wrought to day, is Boaz.

   • 1774, “The Governor surprized the Natchez with seven hundred Men.”, in The History of Louisiana: Or of the Western Parts of Virginia and Carolina: Containing a Description of the Countries that Lie on Both Sides of the River Mississippi: with an Account of the Settlements, Inhabitants, Soil, Climate, and Products‎, London: T. Becket, translation of original by Le Page Du Pratz, page 42:

     I give it you without any other design than to shew you that I reckon nothing dear to me, when I want to do you a pleasure.

   • 1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, […], London: […] S. Hooper, […], →OCLC, page xiv:

     The section shewing its concavity and handle.

   • 1811, [Jane Austen], chapter XIII, in Sense and Sensibility […], volume I, London: […] C[harles] Roworth, […], and published by T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 161:

     […] Mr. Willoughby wanted particularly to shew me the place; […]

   • 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “Ch. 5, Twelfth Century”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book II (The Ancient Monk):

     We have Processions, Preachings, Festivals, Christmas Plays, Mysteries shewn in the Churchyard, at which latter the Townsfolk sometimes quarrel.

   • 1884: Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland, Sec. 4, Concerning the Women

     But, as I shall soon shew, this custom, though it has the advantage of safety, is not without its disadvantages.

   • 1908: T. J. I'a Bromwich, An Introduction to the Theory of Infinite Series, Power Series, Derangement of expansions.

     Expand the series ${\displaystyle {\frac {1}{1-x}}-{\frac {x}{(1-x)^{3}}}+{\frac {1\cdot 3}{2!}}{\frac {x^{2}}{(1-x)^{3}}}-{\frac {1\cdot 3\cdot 5}{3!}}{\frac {x^{3}}{(1-x)^{7}}}+\cdots }$ powers of x, shewing that the coefficient of ${\displaystyle x^{n}}$ is ${\displaystyle S_{n}=1+\sum _{1}^{n}(-1)^{r}{\frac {(n+r)!}{(r!)^{2}(n-r)!}}{\frac {1}{2^{r}}}}$.

   • 1913, John Bagnell Bury, “The Expansion of the Saracens—The East; Historical aspect of Islam”, in Henry Melvill Gwatkin, James Pounder Whitney, editors, The Cambridge Medieval History, volume 2, New York: The Macmillan Company, translation of original by Carl Heinrich Becker, published 1967, The Rise of the Saracens and the foundation of the Western Empire, page 330:

     Within the Christian sphere this current shews itself more especially in the territories of the Greek and Aramaic languages, and the difference between the Greek and Latin Churches is mainly that between Asia and Europe.

   • 1921, Marcel Proust, translated by C. K. Moncrieff, Swann's Way, page 1:

     I would ask myself what o'clock it could be; I could hear the whistling of trains, which, now nearer and now farther off, punctuating the distance like the note of a bird in a forest, shewed me in perspective the deserted countryside through which a traveller would be hurrying towards the nearest station: the path that he followed being fixed forever in his memory but the general excitement due to being in a strange place, to farewells exchanged beneath an unfamiliar lamp which echoed still in his ears amid the silence of the night; and to the delightful prospect of being once again at home.

• shew forth

shew (plural shews)

1. Archaic spelling of show.
   • 1597, Thomas Middleton, The Wisdome of Solomon Paraphrased, London: […] Valentine Sems, […]:

     Cannot the body weepe without the eies? / Yes and frame deepeſt canzons of lament, / Cannot the body feare, without it lies / Vpon the outward ſhew of diſcontent: […]

   • 1620, Peter du Moulin [i.e., Pierre Du Moulin], “The Twentieth Article. Of Iustification by Faith, and What True Faith Is.”, in [anonymous], transl., The Bvckler of the Faith: Or, A Defence of the Confession of Faith of the Reformed Churches in France, against the Obiections of M. [Jean] Arnoux the Iesuite. […], London: […] R[ichard] F[ield] for Nathanael Newbery, […], →OCLC, section 49 (Of the Feare of the Faithfull, and Whether It Derogateth Anything from the Certainty of Saluation), page 144:

     And if he did apprehend (as they ſay) nothing by the iudgement of men, he had no need to carrie his mortification ſo farre, as to dompt and ſubject his moſt inward and ſecret motions, and to pull downe the moſt liuely and ſecret prouocations of his fleſh: but it had bene ſufficient for him to haue vſed diſſimulation, and ſome outward ſhew of pretended reformation.

   • 1642, John Milton, The Reason of Church-Government Urg’d against Prelaty; republished in A Complete Collection of the Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous Works of John Milton, […], volume I, Amsterdam [actually London: s.n.], 1698, →OCLC, page 203:

     Let them make ſhews of reforming while they will, ſo long as the Church is mounted upon the Prelatical Cart, and not as it ought, between the hands of the Miniſters, it will but ſhate and totter; and he that ſets to his hand, though with a good intent to hinder the ſhogging of it, in this unlawful Waggonry wherein it rides, let him beware it be not fatal to him as it was to Uzza.

   • 1788, Mary Wollstonecraft, chapter I, in Mary: A Fiction‎:

     She carefully attended to the ſhews of things, and her opinions, I ſhould have ſaid prejudices, were ſuch as the generality approved of.

   • 1803 December, an Architect, “The Pursuits of Architectural Innovation. No. LXVI. Salisbury Cathedral continued.”, in The Gentleman’s Magazine, London: […] Nichols and Son, […], page 1122, column 1:

     I NEXT paſſed into the choir; a ſcene of transformation indeed! I had been accuſtomed to contemplate here a far different order of things. Our profeſſional Merlins have waved their wands to ſome purpoſe; and all view, as their familiars invited me to believe, was to be given up to the momentary glance at an Eidophuſicon ſhew of the Reſurrection filling the Eaſt window in that ſpot late our Lady’s chapel, now the termination of the choir.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ʃuː/
• Rhymes: -uː
• Homophones: shoe, shoo

shew

1. (East Anglia) simple past of show

   As I travelled, the signposts shew me the way.

shew (third-person singular simple present shews, present participle shewing, simple past and past participle shewed)

1. Nonstandard spelling of shoo.
   • 1869, Frank Campbell, Shew! fly, don't bother me:

     Shew! fly, don't bother me, Shew! fly, don't bother me, Shew! fly, don't bother me, I belong to comp'ny G.

• Hews, hews, wehs

• IPA^(key): /sɛw/

shew

1. third-person plural perfect of seha