Dictionary

hewer en · NOUN

Pronunciation

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Etymology

Etymology tree English hew Proto-Indo-European *-yósder. Proto-Italic *-āzios Latin -āriusnom. Latin -āriusbor. Proto-Germanic *-ārijaz Proto-West Germanic *-ārī Old English -ere Middle English -ere English -er English hewer From hew + -er.

Meanings

1. One who hews.
   • But what of that vast number of the human kind who were always in the background? What of the hewers of wood and drawers of water, the swineherds, the shepherds, the carpenters, the hedgers and cobblers? 1922, Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, The Old English Herbals, London: Longmans, Green and Co., page 13:
   • By certain arrangements in the former method the miner not only gets the coal but makes all proppings and repairs, so that the face moves much more slowly than with the other method where the hewers devote all their time to getting the coal […] 1904, Kellogg Durland, Among the Fife Miners, page 62:
   • All three groups were paid less per shift than coal miners. In 1905, for instance, hewers in coal mines received an average 3.79 marks per shift; in zinc and lead, 3.10 marks; in iron, 2.36 marks. 1975, Lawrence Schofer, The Formation of a Modern Labor Force, Upper Silesia, 1865-1914:
   • The Larrakiahs at Port Darwin seem to have identified themselves with the white population, and became hewers of wood and drawers of water for the settlement. 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 225:
   • And behold, I will giue to thy seruants the hewers that cut timber, twentie thousand measures of beaten wheat, and twentie thousand measures of barley, and twentie thousand baths of wine, and twentie thousand baths of oyle. 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 2 Chronicles 2:10:

Forms

Deriveds

wood-hewer · rough-hewer · hewers of wood and drawers of water · wood hewer · woodhewer

Translations (6)

bg каменоделец (one who hews) · bg дървосекач (one who hews) · de Hauer (one who hews) · nl houwer (one who hews) · fi puunhakkaaja (one who hews) · eo ŝtonhakisto (one who hews)