Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Mew

Mew , noun

[Anglo-Saxon m{not transcribed}w, akin to Dutch meeuw, German mowe, Old High German m{not transcribed}h, Icelandic mār.]

(Zoology) A gull, esp. the common British species (Larus canus); called also sea mew, maa, mar, mow, and cobb.

Mew , transitive verb

[Old English muen, French muer, from Latin mutare to change, from movere to move. See Move, and compare Mew a cage, Molt.]

To shed or cast; to change; to molt; as, the hawk mewed his feathers.
Nine times the moon had mewed her horns. — Dryden

Mew , intransitive verb

To cast the feathers; to molt; hence, to change; to put on a new appearance.
Now everything doth mew, And shifts his rustic winter robe. — Turbervile

Mew , noun

[Old English mue, French mue change of feathers, scales, skin, the time or place when the change occurs, from muer to molt, mew, Latin mutare to change. See 2d Mew.]

1.
A cage for hawks while mewing; a coop for fattening fowls; hence, any inclosure; a place of confinement or shelter; -- in the latter sense usually in the plural.
Full many a fat partrich had he in mewe. — Chaucer
Forthcoming from her darksome mew. — Spenser
Violets in their secret mews. — Wordsworth
2.
A stable or range of stables for horses; -- compound used in the plural, and so called from the royal stables in London, built on the site of the king's mews for hawks.

Mew , transitive verb

[From Mew a cage.]

To shut up; to inclose; to confine, as in a cage or other inclosure.
More pity that the eagle should be mewed. — Shakespeare
Close mewed in their sedans, for fear of air. — Dryden

Mew , intransitive verb

[Of imitative origin; compare German miauen.]

To cry as a cat. — Shakespeare

Mew , noun

The common cry of a cat. — Shakespeare