mews

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: myo͞oz, IPA^(key): /mjuːz/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Homophone: muse
• Rhymes: -uːz

Etymology 1

From Mewes, the name of the royal stables at Charing Cross.

Noun

mews (plural mews or mewses)

1. (British) An alley where there are stables; a narrow passage; a confined place.
   • 1855, Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, section XXIII:

     What penned them there, with all the plain to choose? / No foot-print leading to that horrid mews, / None out of it.

   • 1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room, Vintage Classics, paperback edition, page 106

     It was healthy and magnificient because one room, above a mews, somewhere near the river, contained fifty excited, talkative, friendly people.

   • 1935, T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral, Part II:

     It was here in the kitchen, in the passage
     In the mews in the harn in the byre in the market place […] .

   • 1945 September and October, “The Origin of the Euston Hotel”, in Railway Magazine, page 266:

     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.

2. (falconry) A place where birds of prey are housed.

Translations

alley where there are stables; narrow passage; confined place

• Hungarian: istállósor (hu)
• Irish: eachlann f, stáblaí m pl
• Welsh: gwastrodfa f

place where birds of prey are housed

• Irish: cúb seabhac f

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “mews”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Etymology 2

Noun

mews

1. plural of mew

Etymology 3

See mew.

Verb

mews

1. third-person singular simple present indicative of mew

Anagrams

• MWEs, smew, wems