rough-hew
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to hew (timber, stone, etc.) roughly or without smoothing or finishing.
-
to shape roughly; give crude form to.
verb
-
to cut or hew (timber, stone, etc) roughly without finishing the surface
-
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
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
Every man had the right to rough-hew his own life.
From Swirling Waters by Max Rittenberg
You know the lines— 'There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will'?
From Innocent : her fancy and his fact by Marie Corelli
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
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
The Los Angeles depicted in “This Fool” was a rough-hewed paradise.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 21, 2024
From the outside, with its rough-hewed stones flattered by brilliant sunlight and its windows overlooking the golden Dome of the Rock, the 200-year-old home in the heart of the Muslim Quarter is a Jerusalem postcard.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 27, 2023
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
Then I sheared off all the light wood on the growing olive tree, and I rough-hewed the trunk with the adze, and I made the tree into a bed post.
From The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy by Willy Pogany
After all, it is ridiculous wasting so much time and energy in rough-hewing our ends, when the shaping lies with other hands than ours.
From The Paternoster Ruby by Charles Edmonds Walk
Quarrying, as I have said, implied cutting out and rough-hewing blocks exactly of the right dimensions for certain portions of a building or a piece of statuary.
From The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti by John Addington Symonds
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
"We've got to have all sorts to make a nation, and he's the kind of machine that does the rough-hewing," he said.
From Elizabeth Visits America by Elinor Glyn
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 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
At Superposition, John Rivas’s multimedia paintings and rough-hewn wooden sculptures depicting his kin are testaments to the importance of family.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 3, 2025
He’s rough-hewn, simple, hardworking, not immune to the impermanent nature of the world but brought up short when that world goes awry; Mr. Edgerton has to give emotional depth to a laconic character.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 20, 2025
His brooding, rough-hewn features were recognizable worldwide, his name a rallying cry from South America to the Vatican.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2024
His fingers drummed against the rough-hewn planks of the table.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.
