stew
1 Americanverb (used with object)
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stews,
present (3rd person singular)
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stewed,
past participle, past
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stewing
present participle
verb (used without object)
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stews,
present (3rd person singular)
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stewed,
past participle, past
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stewing
present participle
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to undergo cooking by simmering or slow boiling.
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Informal. to fret, worry, or fuss.
He stewed about his chaotic state of affairs all day.
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to feel uncomfortable due to a hot, humid, stuffy atmosphere, as in a closed room; swelter.
noun
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a preparation of meat, fish, or other food cooked by stewing, especially a mixture of meat and vegetables.
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Informal. a state of agitation, uneasiness, or worry.
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a brothel; whorehouse.
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stews, a neighborhood occupied chiefly by brothels.
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Obsolete. a vessel for boiling or stewing.
idioms
noun
noun
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a dish of meat, fish, or other food, cooked by stewing
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( as modifier )
stew pot
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informal a difficult or worrying situation or a troubled state (esp in the phrase in a stew )
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a heterogeneous mixture
a stew of people of every race
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archaic (usually plural) a brothel
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obsolete a public room for hot steam baths
verb
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to cook or cause to cook by long slow simmering
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informal (intr) to be troubled or agitated
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informal (intr) to be oppressed with heat or crowding
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to cause (tea) to become bitter or (of tea) to become bitter through infusing for too long
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to suffer unaided the consequences of one's actions
noun
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a fishpond or fishtank
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an artificial oyster bed
Synonym Usage
See boil 1.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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stewsimple
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stewssimple
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have stewedperfect
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has stewedperfect
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am stewingprogressive
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are stewingprogressive
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is stewingprogressive
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have been stewingperfect progressive
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has been stewingperfect progressive
Past
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stewedsimple
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had stewedperfect
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was stewingprogressive
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were stewingprogressive
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had been stewingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of stew1
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English steuen, stuwe “to take a sweat bath,” from Middle French estuver, verbal derivative of estuve “sweat room of a bath”; see origin at stove 1
Origin of stew2
An Americanism dating back to 1970–1975; shortening of steward ( def. ) or stewardess ( def. )
Explanation
To stew is to slowly cook food, which results in a soup-like food called a stew. To stew also means to brood angrily. If you cook something slowly, like beef or vegetables, you stew it. The result of stewing is also called stew, which is usually chunky, like a thick soup. People can stew in another way when it comes to emotions. If your sister sits and worries about something, she stews. The root of stew is the Old French estuver, "bathe or stew." Back in the fourteenth century, stew was also a slang word meaning "brothel or bath house."
Vocabulary lists containing stew
Blanch, Poach, and Scald: Cooking Methods
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As Brave as You
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"Familiar Places"
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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:
I like the sundubu-jjigae, spicy tofu stew at Surawon Tofu House.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026
Unordered prime rib from the hotel’s steakhouse goes into a stew at the buffet the next day.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
With little energy available to disrupt it, the omega pattern can persist for days -- or weeks -- allowing heat to stew and temperatures to intensify beneath it.
From Barron's ● Jun. 23, 2026
A spoonful whisked into a skirt steak stew can make it taste as though it simmered well past dinnertime.
From Salon ● Jun. 2, 2026
And this food was even better than the food I remembered eating—better than Martha’s meat pies, or Red’s granny’s stew.
From "Rump: The (Fairly) True Story of Rumpelstilskin" by Liesl Shurtliff
When dried and salted, guitarfish is used in soups and stews across Ghana.
From Barron's ● Jul. 23, 2026
In Burbank, family-run Tun Lahmajo delves into Armenian homestyle dishes, including flatbreads, cold salads, roasted meats, a range of soups and herbed stews.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026
He says he cooks chillis and stews to take to work, avoids impulse purchases and tries to keep spending on a night out below £20.
From BBC ● Apr. 17, 2026
Sal stews morosely amid bursts of threatening belligerence that Sonny tries to tamp down.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 31, 2026
Beatrice Ziaty, for example, liked to make spicy stews, but she cut back on the peppers whenever Luma was coming over because she knew the coach couldn’t handle the spicy food.
From "Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference" by Warren St. John
I take a tapa of rabo de toro, a stewed tail so tender it forgets it was ever muscle.
From Salon ● Jun. 23, 2026
As he stewed, Tesla’s rivals have been preparing for a robot future of their own.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 8, 2025
“And turtles? And the fact that, like, it’s all stewed up with, like, chilies and peppers and onions and like, ‘Oh, you really made this a dish?’
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2025
Their sound is stewed with the gritty '70s soul of Isaac Hayes and Marvin Gaye, offset by Johnson's stop-you-in-your-tracks vocals.
From BBC ● Jun. 23, 2025
In a separate Public Health Service study, analysis of prison meals disclosed such items as stewed dried fruit containing 69.6 parts per million and bread containing 100.9 parts per million of DDT!
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
I considered basting the tomatoes in butter and stewing them down with miso until soft and glossy.
From Salon ● Aug. 1, 2026
The English players were still stewing four minutes later when Maradona proved that he was more than just a cheat.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026
"I wrote it on Monday because I'd been stewing in anger about ICE," Terrell posted on Instagram, adding he was stunned by the reception it received.
From Barron's ● Jan. 29, 2026
It speaks to our pickle as consumers that I have been stewing over this two-faced selling approach for weeks and am still not sure if I should want to stop it.
From Slate ● Oct. 9, 2025
“You gotta grasp on to it, hold it tight and use it as ammunition. You use that anger to get things done instead of just stewing in it.”
From "Anger Is a Gift" by Mark Oshiro
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.
