taws
Americannoun
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taws
plural
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a whip or leather thong used to drive a spinning top.
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a leather whip having its tip divided into smaller strips, used to punish schoolchildren.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of taws
1505–15; plural of obsolete taw < Old Norse taug rope; cognate with Old English tēag tie
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.
He is the most stupid of all my mother's children; he knows nothing of his book; when he should mind that, he is hiding or hoarding his taws and marbles, or laying up farthings.
From Isaac Bickerstaff, physician and astrologer by Sir Richard Steele
And you may helpe them much by enlarging their rootes with the taws of the tree, whence you take them.
From A New Orchard And Garden or, The best way for planting, grafting, and to make any ground good, for a rich Orchard: Particularly in the North and generally for the whole kingdome of England by William Lawson
Clearly his Dominie had not abused the taws.
From Notes of a Camp-Follower on the Western Front by E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
Also there were three glass alleys, two agate taws and thirty-eight commies.
From The Seeker by Harry Leon Wilson
He went back to "taws," and "lagged for goes," with the others.
From The Court of Boyville by Orson Lowell
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.
