Shaw

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /ʃɔː/

Alternative forms

• shawe 13th-17th centuries

Origin

Old English sceaga, scaga. Cognate with Old Norse skógr ("forest, wood"), whence Danish skov ("forest").

Full definition of shaw

Noun

1. (dated) A thicket; a small wood or grove.
• 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, Book IX:And so they rode that tyme tylle a lake that was that tyme called the Perelous Lake, and there they abode under the shawe of the wood.
• 1936, , More Poems, V, lines 1-2The snows are fled away, leaves on the shaws,And grasses in the mead renew their birth,
2. (Scotland) The leaves and tops of vegetables, especially potatoes and turnips.
• 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song, Polygon 2006 (A Scots Quair), p. 35:Up here the hills were brave with the beauty and the heat of it, but the hayfield was still all a crackling dryness and in the potato park beyond the biggings the shaws drooped red and rusty already.

Anagrams

• haws, wash, Wash.