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.
See Examples For:
It also engages the idea that some things may be hard-wired into our blood, echoing Hamlet’s phrase about how there’s a “divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.”
From New York Times ● Apr. 17, 2016
John said to him at this point, and Mr. Jannissary murmured that there was a divinity which shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we may.
From The Foolish Lovers by St. John G. (St. John Greer) Ervine
To shape the ends of wool-skewers, i.e., to point them, requires a degree of skill; any one can rough-hew them.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 21, July, 1859 by Various
You know your Shakespeare, John, and he says most truly: 'There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.'
From To Mars via The Moon An Astronomical Story by Mark Wicks
Indeed, character consists in little acts, well and honorably performed; daily life being the quarry from which we build it up, and rough-hew the habits which form it.
From How to Get on in the World A Ladder to Practical Success by Major A.R. Calhoon
Columbus, a rough-hewed industrial town, had a sizable Black population, as well as Black schools, churches and businesses.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 18, 2026
When Henderson was designing the living room of his Hillsdale house, he painted the wall paneling a greenish gray, but left the original rough-hewed wood posts and beams unfinished for their rich visual character.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 8, 2024
The Los Angeles depicted in “This Fool” was a rough-hewed paradise.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 21, 2024
Mr. Badalamenti’s name conjured the image of an old-world maestro, but he was in fact a wisecracking, golf-playing grandfather with a rough-hewed Brooklyn burr.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 12, 2022
That very evening, by lamplight, he had a block of Parian marble rough-hewed, and a year after that day he was still working at the marble.
From Ancient Manners Also Known As Aphrodite by Pierre Lou?s
We also are rough-hewing the cause of freedom for the slave.
From Project Gutenberg book of Historical Romance of the American Negro by Charles H. Fowler
But he had the greatest confidence in his rough-hewing common sense.
From Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett
A simpler solution seems to be to assign the rough-hewing of the entire project of Cynthia, and its partial accomplishment, to the term of Ralegh's short occultation in 1589.
From Sir Walter Ralegh A Biography by W. (William) Stebbing
The work of mere rough-hewing, of examination into the brute facts, is being done—has to no small extent actually been done—as it never was done before.
From A History of Nineteenth Century Literature (1780-1895) by George Saintsbury
The divinity, however, was taking its course, both rough-hewing and shaping the ends of the two.
From Stephen Archer and Other Tales by George MacDonald
The biggest hits sand down the rough-hewn edges of Mama’s metaphorical front porch to up their resale value, perhaps never funnier than Luke Bryan’s bullet-point summer vacation on “Fish, Hunt, Golf, Drink.”
From Salon ● Aug. 3, 2026
The city’s music, famed for rough-hewn virtuosity from blues to soul to techno, is the spring that waters “Adversity.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 3, 2026
Directors Shari Cookson and Nick Doob also shot the film and did the sound; it has that rough-hewn feel.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2025
His vocal addendum is a wax stamp finalizing the rough-hewn collection of distinct voices.”
From Salon ● Jun. 16, 2025
A wooden stair ascended the south face, anchored on huge rough-hewn beams sunk deep into the ice and frozen in place.
From "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin
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.
