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sew
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
sew
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a sewing machine
▪ Can I borrow your sewing machine to make some curtains?
sew on a button
▪ It doesn't take a minute to sew on a button.
sewing machine
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
back
▪ Amin ordered that the body should be sewn back together.
▪ Later, police rushed the damaged nose part to hospital where it was sewn back on by delicate plastic surgery.
▪ Birds sewed back and forth over the line.
on
▪ This Teddy, so the tale went, had had one paw removed and a small flail with leather tails sewn on.
▪ The leather ring on my left shoulder had the holster sewn on near the bottom.
▪ Instead, I thought bitterly, I sewed on, with my skin whole and I sewed for strangers.
together
▪ Slip lasting has uppers sewn together under the insole.
▪ If you pull too hard on the place where the fabric is sewn together, what happens to a quilt?
▪ Two heavy pieces of leather sewn together and stuffed with money.
▪ In the weeks to come, Felicity would show me patches sewn together by hand.
▪ These themes and features, so well sewn together are what make Great Expectations a truly great book.
▪ When the gores have been sewn together, shroud loops are added at each hem, that is, one for each hem.
up
▪ It was about the theft of registered mail - I think we've got it sewn up.
▪ The room was filled with fine sprays of blood until he got it sewed up.
▪ Is there any chance of a job or has the Godfather Of Soul got the market sewn up?
▪ President Ford had the nomination all but sewed up.
▪ He believes they will win in the new town areas where they already have the local council seats sewn up.
▪ He couldn't wait to get me sewn up, could he?
▪ For the lawyers have it all sewn up.
▪ And did he have their little scarves sewn up into a patchwork quilt?
■ NOUN
cut
▪ But at last with your help I've conquered the cut and sew, I could give you all a hug.
hand
▪ Pattern cutters, fitters, sewing hands and their assistants all worked at an incredible speed.
▪ In the weeks to come, Felicity would show me patches sewn together by hand.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
sewing/quilting etc bee
▪ I don't mean sermons, or those awful sewing bees we used to have.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Where did you learn to sew so well?
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Construction: shingle construction - sections of fibre are sewn to the outer and liner and overlaid to eliminate any cold spots.
▪ Granted, any skilled practitioner could make a set of numbers sew a quilt that could cover an airplane hangar.
▪ I washed out a pair of tights and sewed on a button.
▪ I went back to my sewing.
▪ More and more women work and have less time to sew and do crafts.
▪ One afternoon I had seen him painfully sewing on a shirt-button.
▪ She learned to sew and made maternity smocks he tried to admire.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Sew

Sew \Sew\, n.[OE. See Sewer household officer.] Juice; gravy; a seasoned dish; a delicacy. [Obs.]
--Gower.

I will not tell of their strange sewes.
--Chaucer.

Sew

Sew \Sew\, v. t. [See Sue to follow.] To follow; to pursue; to sue. [Obs.]
--Chaucer. Spenser.

Sew

Sew \Sew\, v. i. To practice sewing; to work with needle and thread.

Sew

Sew \Sew\, v. t. [[root]151 b. See Sewer a drain.] To drain, as a pond, for taking the fish. [Obs.]
--Tusser.

Sew

Sew \Sew\, v. t. [imp. Sewed; p. p. Sewed, rarely Sewn; p. pr. & vb. n. Sewing.] [OE. sewen, sowen, AS. si['o]wian, s[=i]wian; akin to OHG. siuwan, Icel. s?ja, Sw. sy, Dan. sye, Goth. siujan, Lith. siuti, Russ, shite, L. ssuere, Gr. ????, Skr. siv. [root]156. Cf. Seam a suture, Suture.]

  1. To unite or fasten together by stitches, as with a needle and thread.

    No man also seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment.
    --Mark ii. 21.

  2. To close or stop by ssewing; -- often with up; as, to sew up a rip.

  3. To inclose by sewing; -- sometimes with up; as, to sew money in a bag.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
sew

Old English siwian "to stitch, sew, mend, patch, knit together," earlier siowian, from Proto-Germanic *siwjanan (cognates: Old Norse syja, Swedish sy, Danish sye, Old Frisian sia, Old High German siuwan, Gothic siujan "to sew"), from PIE root *syu- "to bind, sew" (cognates: Sanskrit sivyati "sews," sutram "thread, string;" Greek hymen "thin skin, membrane," hymnos "song;" Latin suere "to sew, sew together;" Old Church Slavonic šijo "to sew," šivu "seam;" Lettish siuviu, siuti "to sew," siuvikis "tailor;" Russian švec "tailor"). Related: Sewed; sewing. To sew (something) up "bring it to a conclusion" is a figurative use attested by 1904.

Wiktionary
sew

Etymology 1 vb. 1 (context transitive English) To use a needle to pass thread repeatedly through (pieces of fabric) in order to join them together. 2 (context intransitive English) To use a needle to pass thread repeatedly through pieces of fabric in order to join them together. 3 (context transitive English) To enclose by sewing. Etymology 2

vb. (context obsolete transitive English) To drain, as a pond, for taking the fish.

WordNet
sew
  1. v. fasten by sewing; do needlework [syn: run up, sew together, stitch]

  2. create (clothes) with cloth; "Can the seamstress sew me a suit by next week?" [syn: tailor, tailor-make]

  3. [also: sewn]

Wikipedia

Usage examples of "sew".

Sew up the fish in a cloth dredged with flour, and boil in salted and acidulated water.

So he went to his place and fell asleep and slept long, while the women went down to acre and meadow, or saw to the baking of bread or the sewing of garments, or went far afield to tend the neat and the sheep.

But if she would like to come here this afternoon with her sewing, the neighbors are coming too, and so is Ali Aga, to amuse us.

That dark, wire-haired woman Kumul had found to measure up Ager and then sew and stitch the blue jerkin and pants was a miracle worker.

Now Henri, in plain white sewn with silver aiglettes, his black hair shining, looking well, touched the Book, kissed the Cross and was taking the oath.

Eight wore the skins typical of the Akka people, furs and hides sewn into clothing.

What a preposterous glut of paper and ink he has amassed, loose leaves and envelopes and journals with spines and notebooks sewn with string, all neatly filled with his blockish, inelegant handwriting, all annotated with symbols in his own private code, signifying such things as further study needed or but is this really true?

She were lying under a down quiltme wedding gift to the bride, Hindoo lady up in Ponda sewed it for mebut just as we came in she shrugged it off, and you could see her bare as a babby to the waist.

His arm already had been swabbed with iodine, sewn up and bandaged and in a sling and he was thanking his luck that his wound was relatively superficial.

And he recognised the beadle, holding under his arms and balancing against his stomach some twenty large sewn volumes.

The three of them would form the Marspan Iowa Consort, to which end Boa had already sewn together a sort of banner of welcome and hung it across the whole width of the music room.

Nyce had ever worn to the Cacodemonic Carnivals on Soma Plume: sixty-one outfits, all set with precious jewels and sewn with Thread of Sirius.

In the bowels of the caravanserai, young ladies who a year before had been hand-weaving cloth for clothing and hand sewing same were using computers to analyze voice intercepts, running satellite communications gear and managing one of the most advanced battlefield networks to be found in the world.

Like the Arab ships of yore, it was sewn togethernot by coir, as in the ancient seagoing vessels, but by thousands upon thousands of miles of rope made from monofilament fiber.

The dressmakers were hard at work, the mother cutting and the daughter sewing, but, as progress could not be too rapid, I told the mother that she would oblige us if she could procure another seamstress who spoke French.