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
This does but rough-hew, and design; Leaves art to polish and refine.
From Hudibras by Butler, Samuel
But it has been written by a wise man, “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will,” and Tom Blount was soon to find out its truth.
From The Vast Abyss The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam by Fenn, George Manville
We may surely rough-hew our materials first, and shape and place them afterwards.'
From Laws by Jowett, Benjamin
For, where men like Byron are concerned, it is peculiarly true that the divinity of the Muse shapes their ends, rough-hew these how they may.
From The Bridling of Pegasus Prose Papers on Poetry by Austin, Alfred
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
Across from them an aged Hillman sat in a rough-hewed, high-backed chair.
From Terry A Tale of the Hill People by Thomson, Charles Goff
The powers of nature are now otherwise employed than in rough-hewing the surface of the globe.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 341, March, 1844 by Various
While I was rough-hewing the block, I made a model.
From Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini by Symonds, John Addington
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 Saintsbury, George
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 Symonds, John Addington
But he had the greatest confidence in his rough-hewing common sense.
From Clayhanger by Bennett, Arnold
He isn’t polished, let alone slick; he conveys a rough-hewn authenticity and comfort in his own skin.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
The Fitzwilliam Museum’s moving “War Craft” exhibition memorializes a unique popular art, rough-hewn from found objects and made by men killing time in the field or, afterward, as souvenirs of survival.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 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
His vocal addendum is a wax stamp finalizing the rough-hewn collection of distinct voices.”
From Salon ● Jun. 16, 2025
Slowly at first, some limping or leaning on their fellows, the captives began to emerge from their rough-hewn pen.
From "A Dance with Dragons" 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.
