ew

Formsews, ewwing, ewwed

1. 1
   interjection

   A sound used to show disgust or nausea at something unpleasant or distasteful.

   Ew, who left this moldy sandwich in the break room fridge?

   Ew, the whole basement reeks of stagnant water and mildew.

   Similarugh, ick, yuck, bleh, blech

   Note

   Less a word than a sound made into one: it is imitative in origin and belongs with oh and ugh among the noises English spells out. It usually stands at the head of a sentence, set off by a comma or exclamation mark, with the cause of the disgust following, such as a fly in the soup or peanut butter gone wrong. It is also the root of the verb 'to ew'.

2. 2
   verbcolloquialtransitive or intransitive

   To let out an "ew" as a way of showing disgust at someone or something.

   They ew at anything green that lands on their dinner plates.

   Whenever he describes the surgery, she ews and looks away.

   Similarcringe, grimace, recoil

   Note

   Mostly a comeback. Someone says the interjection, and the other speaker turns it into a verb to push back: "Don't ew me right now," in Babe Walker's Psychos (2014), or "I don't ew the…" in Meg Elison's "Drone Pirates of Silicon Valley" (2022). It works with an object or without one. The w doubles before an ending (ewwing, ewwed), but the third person is simply ews.

3. 3
   nounobsolete

   Obsolete spelling of yew.

   Note

   A homograph only on paper. This ew has nothing to do with the cry of disgust. It is simply an old way of writing yew: the dark-needled conifer, its wood, and the archer's bow made from it. In modern writing, use yew. When you meet ew for the tree in an older text, read it as yew, not as an exclamation.

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