Forhew

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To cut to pieces. obsolete

    "And Beaumayns sawe hym and made hym redy / & ther they mette[…]and put their sheldes afore them / & drewe their swerdes / and gaf many grete strokes that somtyme they hurtled to gyder that they felle grouelyng on the ground Thus they fought two houres and more that their sheldes & theyr hauberkes were al forhewen / & in many stedys they were wounded"

Example

More examples

"And Beaumayns sawe hym and made hym redy / & ther they mette[…]and put their sheldes afore them / & drewe their swerdes / and gaf many grete strokes that somtyme they hurtled to gyder that they felle grouelyng on the ground Thus they fought two houres and more that their sheldes & theyr hauberkes were al forhewen / & in many stedys they were wounded"

Etymology

From Old English forhēawan, corresponding to for- + hew.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.