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# mew

«mew» in Mova's early modern english dictionary: **cat's cry (for the mew sense, seagull)** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 3 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### kind

archaic word

### modern equivalent

cat's cry (for the mew sense, seagull)

### part of speech

noun and verb (also used as a noun for a sea-gull)

### meaning for a pupil

In the Torah, a mew is a sea-gull, a seabird; in the fairy tales it is a cat's soft high cry. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/emode/M/mew/#m1)

### how it differs from today

Today it means only a cat's cry; the Torah sense (a sea-gull) is no longer used, and the fairy-tale sentences use the cat sense as today.

### examples

- and the ostrich, and the night-hawk, and the sea-mew, and the hawk after its kinds; (Torah LEV.11.16, JPS 1917) [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/emode/M/mew/#x1)
- And then it mewed more than ever. (The Book of Dragons) [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/emode/M/mew/#x2)
- "Well, I should have mewed," said the kitchen-cat. (Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen) [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/emode/M/mew/#x3)

### primary record

mew

### tests

rate: word (≥3 uses, never in EWT or ≥10× EWT, Wiktionary: first sense archaic); corpora 18 (Torah 2, tales 16, Sefer Yetzirah 0); EWT 0; ratio 2.0 (Torah alone 4.7); Wiktionary archaic (first sense)

### In the corpora

- [and the ostrich, and the night-hawk, and the sea-mew, and the hawk after its kinds;](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/jps/LEV.270/)
- [and the ostrich, and the night-hawk, and the sea-mew, and the hawk after its kinds;](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/jps/DEU.416/)
- [White storks are almost silent and clatter their bills to greet each other, while chicks hiss and mew before they learn to clatter.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/10/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «mew» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/emode/M/mew/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.