yew

¹ American  

[yoo, yoo] / yu, yʊ /

pronoun

Eye Dialect.

1. you.

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yew ² American  

[yoo] / yu /

noun

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 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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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

Example Sentences

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

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

"There are yew trees in this country that are older than Stonehenge – nobody would ever contemplate not protecting Stonehenge so why would a living thing that's older than Stonehenge not receive some protection?"

From BBC

He said the medical cause of Benn's death was "refractory cardiogenic shock due to taxane alkaloid poisoning, following ingestion of yew tree berries and leaves".

From BBC

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