yew

¹ American  

[yoo] / ju /

noun

yews plural

1. any of several evergreen, coniferous trees and shrubs of the genera Taxus and Torreya, constituting the family Taxaceae, of the Old World, North America, and Japan, having needlelike or scalelike foliage and seeds enclosed in a fleshy aril.

2. the fine-grained, elastic wood of any of these trees.

3. an archer's bow made of this wood.

4. this tree or its branches as a symbol of sorrow, death, or resurrection.

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yew ² American  

[yoo, yoo] / ju, jʊ /

pronoun

Eye Dialect.

1. you.

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yew British  

/ juː /

noun

1. any coniferous tree of the genus Taxus, of the Old World and North America, esp T. baccata, having flattened needle-like leaves, fine-grained elastic wood, and solitary seeds with a red waxy aril resembling berries: family Taxaceae

2. the wood of any of these trees, used to make bows for archery

3. archery a bow made of yew

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• yews
  plural

Etymology

Origin of yew

before 900; Middle English ew ( e ), Old English ēow, ī ( o ) w; cognate with Old High German īga, īwa ( Middle High German īwe, German Eibe ), Old Norse ýr, MIr eó yew ( Old Irish: stem, shaft), Welsh ywen yew tree, Russian íva willow

Explanation

Use the noun yew when you're talking about the medium-sized evergreen that has flat needles and small red berries. This ancient and durable tree confirms the theory that the longer you hang around English, the more homophones — words that sound the same though they're spelled differently — you'll pick up. There are several of these in the case of yew. Curious thing is, all four words in English with this pronunciation (yew, ewe, you, and u) appeared before the 12th century. Guess we just like to make the sound.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

yew yews

Just a few weeks ago, a horse died minutes after eating a plant in the park that is poisonous to horses, a Japanese yew.

From Salon ● Jun. 20, 2026

We examined the needles and bark of each tree, being careful not to pick out a whitebark pine, Pacific yew or Western white pine—threatened or rare species.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 23, 2025

Any absence would be a major blow for Slot, with Mohamed Salah at the Africa Cup of Nations and Cody Gakpo not ready to return from a muscle injury until early in the yew year.

From Barron's ● Dec. 22, 2025

The team found that most of the ancient wood came from yew trees that populated the area between four and five thousand years ago.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 26, 2023

There the yew bows were made and repaired; staves for lances and pikestaffs were cut.

From "The Door in the Wall" by Marguerite de Angeli

As the forklift advanced, Brown’s sister, Carol, looked at the yews bordering the plaza and said, “Stick it in the bushes, like Sean Spicer.”

From The New Yorker ● May 29, 2017

So we made our wet way through the circular maze of yews and into the stunning castle, which elegantly bridges the Cher River.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 14, 2016

For a project at a London townhouse, yews clipped into massive rectangles are lined up colonnade-style, framing an impeccable tapis vert that is reached by ascending a broad flight of limestone steps.

From Architectural Digest ● May 20, 2015

Conifers include familiar evergreen trees such as pines, spruces, firs, cedars, sequoias, and yews.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2015

The sun was out and the sky too bright a blue to look at as the snow melted off the yews and came clumping down.

From "Orbiting Jupiter" by Gary D. Schmidt