mews en · NOUN · etymology 1
Pronunciation
- /mjuːz/
- (Southern-England) audio
- myo͞oz
Etymology
From Mewes, the name of the royal stables at Charing Cross, which is the plural of mew (“falcon cage”).
Meanings
-
(UK) An alley where there are stables; a narrow passage; a confined place.
It was further proposed that a space of ground near these establishments should be appropriated to a mews for the convenience of persons requiring post horses, and for the standing of horses and carriages at livery.
1945 September and October, “The Origin of the Euston Hotel”, in Railway Magazine, page 266:What penned them there, with all the plain to choose? No foot-print leading to that horrid mews, None out of it.
1855, Robert Browning, chapter XXIII, in Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came:It was healthy and magnificient because one room, above a mews, somewhere near the river, contained fifty excited, talkative, friendly people.
1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, →OCLC, pages 110–111:It was here in the kitchen, in the passage In the mews in the harn in the byre in the market place[…].
1935, T. S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral, Part II:[Pavilion Road is] a cobbled mews lined with butchers, cheesemongers, florists and cafés offering a village-like counterpoint to the grandeur of the main thoroughfare.
2025 August 2, Cathy Hawker, “How bougie is your high street?”, in FT Weekend (House & Home section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 2:
- A place where birds of prey are housed.
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| mews | Number=Plur | lexicographic | |
| mewses | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Translations (5)
ga stáblaí (alley where there are stables; narrow passage; confined place) · ga eachlann (alley where there are stables; narrow passage; confined place) · hu istállósor (alley where there are stables; narrow passage; confined place) · ga cúb seabhac (place where birds of prey are housed) · cy gwastrodfa (alley where there are stables; narrow passage; confined place)