rough-hew
Americanverb (used with object)
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to hew (timber, stone, etc.) roughly or without smoothing or finishing.
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to shape roughly; give crude form to.
verb
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to cut or hew (timber, stone, etc) roughly without finishing the surface
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Also: roughcast. to shape roughly or crudely
Etymology
Origin of rough-hew
First recorded in 1520–30
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
For— “There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, Rough hew them how we will.”
From An Essay In Aid Of A Grammar Of Assent by Newman, John Henry
But I have hope and a strong belief that— "There's a divinity that shapes our ends Rough hew them how we will."
From Journal of a Trip to California Across the Continent from Weston, Mo., to Weber Creek, Cal., in the Summer of 1850 by Smith, Charles W.
I have ever regarded it as the first plain manifestation of that Divinity that shapes our ends, Rough hew them as we will.
From My Bondage and My Freedom by Douglass, Frederick
There's a divinity that shapes our ends Rough hew them how we will.
From The Admirable Bashville or, Constancy Unrewarded by Shaw, Bernard
"There is a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough hew them how we will."
From A Cotswold Village by Gibbs, J. Arthur
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
