shewy

shewy (comparative shewier, superlative shewiest)

1. Obsolete form of showy.
   • 1794, Charlotte Smith, chapter X, in The Banished Man. […], volume II, London: […] T[homas] Cadell, Jun. and W[illiam] Davies, (successors to Mr. [Thomas] Cadell) […], →OCLC, page 199:

     I ſaw you were taken with her, which I ſhould not have expected; for after all, it is but a little uncultivated ruſtic, and ſurely rather ſhewy than handſome.

   • 1801, [Elizabeth Wright], chapter XXIX, in A Marvellous Pleasant Love-Story, volume II, London: […] the Minerva-Press, for W. Lane, […], pages 97–98:

     She was a thin, bony figure, measuring five feet and a half, and had been what is termed a shewy woman. From her first bringing out, at the age of sixteen, to the period we are speaking of, when she must be full thirty-six, her sole and undivided attention had been paid to the embellishments of her figure, and studying the most attractive personal graces.

   • 1814, nobody, of no place [pseudonym], A Word to the Wise!! or Directions for Writing an Eight Day’s Trip to France, Shewing the Necessity of a Man’s Being a Wake, on Such an Occasional Visit to Our Gallic Neighbours; with a Few Useful Hints to Travestiers, Maidstone: […] J. Smith, […], page 16:

     If you have no servant of your own (which I think it is ten to one you have not), contrive to kidnap some other person’s, when you have an opportunity—of course, the shewier his livery, the better for you—[…]

   • 1835, [William Hamilton Maxwell], “Promotion.—Visit to My Grandfather.”, in My Life, volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], page 258:

     Yet he is not likely to win her affections, if younger and shewier persons were placed before her.

   • 1837, Hannah Maria Jones, chapter XXVII, in The Pride of the Village; or, The Farmer’s Daughters. A Domestic Story., London: George Virtue, […], page 534:

     Every circumstance that had appeared unaccountable to her, Mrs. Freeman’s new-born assumption, her recklessness of expense, her self-indulgence, and, above all, the glaring change in her style of dress, from extreme neatness and propriety, to the most flaunting and shewiest attire that she could make up—all was now accounted for; […]

   • 1849 September, R. E. M., “Florence; or, Wit and Wisdom”, in The Literary Garland, and British North American Magazine; a Monthly Repository of Tales, Sketches, Poetry, Music, Engravings, &c. &c. &c., volume VII, number 9, Montreal: Lovell & Gibson, […], chapter XVIII, page 386, column 2:

     The latter, I think, are far superior to the shewier meteors which bewilder us one moment with their overpowering radiance, and the next, leave us in utter darkness.