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yew
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
yew
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
hedge
▪ The distance between the two yew hedges is about seven metres.
▪ The huddled figure shambled alongside the yew hedge towards the wicket gate.
▪ It had a formal front garden with gravel triangles and small yew hedges.
tree
▪ And so Mister Johnny took them up through the dark yew trees, carrying the goose and holding Nick's hand.
▪ The track climbs steadily through the woodland where the yew trees are of special interest.
▪ He could even pick out the dots of furze bushes and stunted yew trees on the steep slopes.
▪ In the yew trees nearby, birds sang and the hum of traffic and smell of exhaust fumes carried on the air.
▪ I have a little wilderness, which, when I bought the premises, was full of yew trees, laurels and weeds.
▪ The yew trees grew densely, some of them covered with ivy that rustled and rattled.
▪ Taxol comes from the yew tree.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ And so Mister Johnny took them up through the dark yew trees, carrying the goose and holding Nick's hand.
▪ Clipped yew and holly are used to separate the layout, while flower-beds flank the lawn.
▪ He could even pick out the dots of furze bushes and stunted yew trees on the steep slopes.
▪ Pamela with the silver, steel and yew wood Livewire Trophy.
▪ Take for instance the example of yew wood.
▪ The furniture wasn't new, but had been expensive: a good leather suite and real yew furniture.
▪ The many scarce varieties of wood, including box, yew, mulberry and walnut, created a great deal of interest.
▪ The rain was making a curtain all round them but not a drop came through the yew.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Yew

Yew \Yew\, n. [OE. ew, AS. e['o]w, [=i]w, eoh; akin to D. ijf, OHG. [=i]wa, [=i]ha, G. eibe, Icel. [=y]r; cf. Ir. iubhar, Gael. iubhar, iughar, W. yw, ywen, Lith. j["e]va the black alder tree.]

  1. (Bot.) An evergreen tree ( Taxus baccata) of Europe, allied to the pines, but having a peculiar berrylike fruit instead of a cone. It frequently grows in British churchyards.

  2. The wood of the yew. It is light red in color, compact, fine-grained, and very elastic. It is preferred to all other kinds of wood for bows and whipstocks, the best for these purposes coming from Spain.

    Note: The American yew ( Taxus baccata, var. Canadensis) is a low and straggling or prostrate bush, never forming an erect trunk. The California yew ( Taxus brevifolia) is a good-sized tree, and its wood is used for bows, spear handles, paddles, and other similar implements. Another yew is found in Florida, and there are species in Japan and the Himalayas.

  3. A bow for shooting, made of the yew.

Yew

Yew \Yew\ ([=u]), v. i. See Yaw.

Yew

Yew \Yew\ ([=u]), a. Of or pertaining to yew trees; made of the wood of a yew tree; as, a yew whipstock.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
yew

evergreen tree of temperate Europe and Asia, Old English iw, eow "yew," from Proto-Germanic *iwo- (cognates: Middle Dutch iwe, Dutch ijf, Old High German iwa, German Eibe, Old Norse yr), from PIE *ei-wo- (cognates: Old Irish eo, Welsh ywen "yew"), perhaps a suffixed form of root *ei- (2) "reddish, motley, yellow."\n

\nOED says French if, Spanish iva, Medieval Latin ivus are from Germanic (and says Dutch ijf is from French); others posit a Gaulish ivos as the source of these. Lithuanian jeva likewise is said to be from Germanic. The tree symbolizes both death and immortality, being poisonous as well as long-lived. Reference to its wood as well-suited to making bows dates from c.1400.

Wiktionary
yew

a. Made from the wood of the yew tree. n. 1 (context countable English) A species of coniferous tree, (taxlink Taxus baccata species noshow=1), with dark-green flat needle-like leaves and seeds bearing red arils, native to western, central and southern Europe, northwest Africa, northern Iran and southwest Asia. 2 (context countable by extension English) Any tree or shrub of the genus ''Taxus''. 3 Other conifers resembling plants in genus ''Taxus'' 4 # in family ''(taxlink Podocarpaceae family noshow=1)'' 5 # in family ''(taxlink Cephalotaxaceae family noshow=1)'' 6 (context uncountable English) The wood of the such trees. 7 A bow for archery, made of yew wood.

WordNet
yew

  1. n. wood of a yew; especially the durable fine-grained light brown or red wood of the English yew valued for cabinetwork and archery bows

  2. any of numerous evergreen trees or shrubs having red cup-shaped berries and flattened needlelike leaves

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Yew (disambiguation)

Yew is a common name given to various species of trees, mostly in the genus Taxus. Yew may also refer to:

Yew

Yew is a common name given to various species of trees.

The name is most prominently given to any of various coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus Taxus:

  • European yew or common yew ( Taxus baccata)
  • Pacific yew or western yew ( Taxus brevifolia)
  • Canadian yew ( Taxus canadensis)
  • Chinese yew ( Taxus chinensis)
  • Japanese yew ( Taxus cuspidata)
  • Florida yew ( Taxus floridana)
  • Mexican yew ( Taxus globosa)
  • Sumatran yew ( Taxus sumatrana)
  • Himalayan yew ( Taxus wallichiana)

  • Taxus masonii (Eocene fossil yew)

The name also is used for any of various coniferous plants in the families Taxaceae and Cephalotaxaceae:

  • White-berry yew ( Pseudotaxus chienii)
  • New Caledonian yew or southern yew ( Austrotaxus spicata)
  • Catkin-yew ( Amentotaxus sp.)
  • Plum-yew ( Cephalotaxus sp.)

Various coniferous plants in the family Podocarpaceae, which are superficially similar to other yews, are also known by this name:

  • Prince Albert's yew ( Saxegothaea conspicua)
  • Plum-yew ( Prumnopitys sp.)
Related phrases:

Usage examples of "yew".

Striking through the foliage of the yews and hollies, it spread upon the path and upon the paved space of the Bosquet, a flowered carpet in which the flowers were moonlight upon a groundwork of shadow.

The strange pink grass that grew around the rhu fead shimmered with dew, and the large yew trees that stood like sentinals nearby rustled in the wind.

Yew trees, wild Pynes, vnfruitfull but dropping Resin, tall pineapple, straight Firre, burning Pitch trees, the spungie Larix, the aierie Teda beloued of the mountains, celebrated and preserued for the festiuall Oreades.

A Mandrian was sent for, and he created these formal gardens of clipped yew hedges, leaving only a small copse of natural hust trees on one side, out of sight.

Yet here was the past held still and magnified, the gravel thin and dusted with weeds, the strange mossy stain still clinging obdurately to the foot of the front wall like verdigris, climbers taking light from windows, lichen patterning the roof, and the tulip-shaped yew still sporting a ruff of nettles.

Over that saddle runs the paven way leading from the Brankdale road to the Lion Gate, and within the gate is that garden of the grass walk between the yews where Lessingham stood with the martlet nine weeks before, when first he came to Demonland.

In these woods, yew bark is harvested to make taxol for cancer patients, and cascara bark is harvested for laxatives.

Its name, Taxus, is a corruption of toxos, an arrow, since arrows in the old time were poisoned with the juice of yew.

But first he led Tolley beneath the spreading shade of the yew tree behind the church, where two gravestones stood apart from the others, their brief inscriptions blotted by lichen.

On three sides, to the north, west, and south, the lofty walls of the old ballium still stood, with their machicolated turrets, loopholes, and dark downward crannies for dropping stones and fire on the besiegers, the relics of a more unsettled age: but the southern court of the ballium had become a flower-garden, with quaint terraces, statues, knots of flowers, clipped yews and hollies, and all the pedantries of the topiarian art.

And there were trees-not just the stunted stands of Alpine willow and Glang-ma, whose long branches the nomads used to weave their intricate basketry, or the twisted bush that provided the Yeti-wood for their fires-but around Lhasa were forests of spruce and fir, pine and spreading yew, black and white birches, oaks and poplar.

It was a pretty place, furnished with an assortment of furniture she had chosen for herself years ago--a small brass bedstead, a dressing table of yew and a triple mirror she had discovered in the attics.

Here is Ben Jonson: What beckoning ghost, besprent with April dew, Hails me so solemnly to yonder yew?

Happy happy time, when the white star hovers Low over dim fields fresh with bloomy dew, Near the face of dawn, that draws athwart the darkness, Threading it with colour, like yewberries the yew.

Lessingham came down from the chariot, and the little black martlet circled about his head, showing him a yew avenue leading from the gates.