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YEW
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Any of numerous evergreen trees or shrubs having red cup-shaped berries and flattened needlelike leaves
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("yew" is a kind of...):
conifer; coniferous tree (any gymnospermous tree or shrub bearing cones)
Meronyms (substance of "yew"):
yew (wood of a yew; especially the durable fine-grained light brown or red wood of the English yew valued for cabinetwork and archery bows)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "yew"):
California nutmeg; nutmeg-yew; Torreya californica (California evergreen having a fruit resembling a nutmeg but with a strong turpentine flavor)
stinking cedar; stinking yew; Torrey tree; Torreya taxifolia (rare small evergreen of northern Florida; its glossy green leaves have an unpleasant fetid smell when crushed)
English yew; Old World yew; Taxus baccata (predominant yew in Europe; extraordinarily long-lived and slow growing; one of the oldest species in the world)
California yew; Pacific yew; Taxus brevifolia; western yew (small or medium irregularly branched tree of the Pacific coast of North America; yields fine hard close-grained wood)
Japanese yew; Taxus cuspidata (shrubby hardy evergreen of China and Japan having lustrous dark green foliage; cultivated in the eastern United States)
Florida yew; Taxus floridana (small bushy yew of northern Florida having spreading branches and very narrow leaves)
Austrotaxus spicata; New Caledonian yew (large yew native to New Caledonia; cultivated in eastern Australia and New Zealand and Hawaii)
Pseudotaxus chienii; white-berry yew (yew of southeastern China, differing from the Old World yew in having white berries)
Holonyms ("yew" is a member of...):
family Taxaceae; Taxaceae; yew family (sometimes classified as member of order Taxales)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Wood of a yew; especially the durable fine-grained light brown or red wood of the English yew valued for cabinetwork and archery bows
Classified under:
Nouns denoting plants
Hypernyms ("yew" is a kind of...):
wood (the hard fibrous lignified substance under the bark of trees)
Holonyms ("yew" is a substance of...):
yew (any of numerous evergreen trees or shrubs having red cup-shaped berries and flattened needlelike leaves)
Context examples:
The ceribate ester form of paclitaxel, a compound extracted from the Pacific yew tree Taxus brevifolia with antineoplastic activity.
(Paclitaxel Ceribate, NCI Thesaurus)
A compound extracted from the Pacific yew tree Taxus brevifolia with antineoplastic activity.
(Paclitaxel, NCI Thesaurus)
The good understanding between the Colonel and Miss Dashwood seemed rather to declare that the honours of the mulberry-tree, the canal, and the yew arbour, would all be made over to HER; and Mrs. Jennings had, for some time ceased to think at all of Mrs. Ferrars.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
An orally available, mucoadhesive lipid preparation consisting of paclitaxel, a compound extracted from the Pacific yew tree Taxus brevifolia, in a formulation that is comprised of a mixture of monoolein, tricarprylin, and Tween 80, with potential antineoplastic activity.
(Mucoadhesive Paclitaxel Formulation, NCI Thesaurus)
Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
"Down superstition!" I commented, as that spectre rose up black by the black yew at the gate.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
It was impossible to mistake the scene of the young lady’s adventure, for the road runs between the open heath on one side and an old yew hedge upon the other, surrounding a park which is studded with magnificent trees.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Never did tombs look so ghastly white; never did cypress, or yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of funereal gloom; never did tree or grass wave or rustle so ominously; never did bough creak so mysteriously; and never did the far-away howling of dogs send such a woeful presage through the night.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Two thousand a year without debt or drawback—except the little love-child, indeed; aye, I had forgot her; but she may be 'prenticed out at a small cost, and then what does it signify? Delaford is a nice place, I can tell you; exactly what I call a nice old fashioned place, full of comforts and conveniences; quite shut in with great garden walls that are covered with the best fruit-trees in the country; and such a mulberry tree in one corner! Lord! how Charlotte and I did stuff the only time we were there! Then, there is a dove-cote, some delightful stew-ponds, and a very pretty canal; and every thing, in short, that one could wish for; and, moreover, it is close to the church, and only a quarter of a mile from the turnpike-road, so 'tis never dull, for if you only go and sit up in an old yew arbour behind the house, you may see all the carriages that pass along.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
Some might say one thing and some another, just as one bowman loves the yew, and a second will not shoot save with the ash.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
