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Dewey

American  
[doo-ee, dyoo-ee] / ˈdu i, ˈdju 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.


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)

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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.

See Examples For:

Now, Dewey and the progressives argued, those ideas were to be repealed.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

Along with Campbell, “Scream 7” will see the return of “Scream” veterans Courteney Cox as Gale Weathers and David Arquette as Dewey Riley, despite the latter’s fate in the 2022 installment.

From Los Angeles Times Oct. 30, 2025

“Fiction books are usually put on the shelf in alphabetical order by the author’s last name. Nonfiction titles are classified according to the Dewey decimal system.”

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

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