Other forms: dews
Dew is the tiny water drops that cover grass on a clear morning. Wet with dew, the morning dew, dew on the windscreen.
It forms when a surface cools below the temperature at which the air's moisture condenses — the dew point, which is a standard measure in weather forecasting and in air conditioning. Frost is dew that formed below freezing. Note dewy, meaning fresh and moist; dewdrop; and honeydew, which is neither dew nor honey but the sticky secretion aphids leave on leaves.
1noundewTiny water drops that form on surfaces overnight.
“The dew was heavy enough to soak through their boots.”
dew is condensed moisture.
Old English deaw descends from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning to flow or moisten. The word has changed almost nothing in a thousand years, which is usual for the plain names of weather.
Proto-Indo-European
*dʰewh₂- — smoke, haze
Proto-Germanic
*dawwaz
Proto-West Germanic
*dauw
Old English
dēaw — dew
Middle English
dew
English, today
dew
Built from
From Middle English dew, from Old English dēaw (“dew”), from Proto-West Germanic dauw, from Proto-Germanic dawwaz, dawwą (“dew, moisture”), from Proto-Indo-European dʰewh₂- (“smoke, haze”). Cognate with German Tau, Dutch dauw and Afrikaans dou. a doublet of dag.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA