Dewey

American  

[doo-ee, dyoo-ee] / ˈdu i, ˈdyu i /

noun

1. George, 1837–1917, U.S. admiral: defeated Spanish fleet in Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War.

2. John, 1859–1952, U.S. philosopher and educator.

3. Melvil Melville Louis Kossuth Dewey, 1851–1931, U.S. educator, administrator, and innovator in the field of library science.

4. Thomas E(dmund), 1902–71, U.S. lawyer and political leader.

5. a male given name, form of David.

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Dewey British  

/ ˈdjuːɪ /

noun

1. John. 1859–1952, US pragmatist philosopher and educator: an exponent of progressivism in education, he formulated an instrumentalist theory of learning through experience. His works include The School and Society (1899), Democracy and Education (1916), and Logic: the Theory of Inquiry (1938)

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Example Sentences

Now, Dewey and the progressives argued, those ideas were to be repealed.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 15, 2026

“What helped me most was first recognizing the feeling as it started,” recalls Dewey.

From Slate • Mar. 15, 2026

James Dewey Watson was born in Chicago on 6 April 1928 to a family who believed in "books, birds and the Democratic Party".

From BBC • Nov. 7, 2025

Democrat Adlai Stevenson and Republican Thomas Dewey ran twice and lost twice.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 5, 2025

Because every fifteen minutes, the animated ceiling looped through call numbers for every Dewey decimal room in the library.

From "Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library" by Chris Grabenstein