Other forms: yews
A yew is a dark slow-growing evergreen often found in churchyards. An ancient yew, a yew hedge, under the yew.
Britain's oldest trees are yews, and several are thought to be older than the churches beside them, which suggests the churches were built at sites already sacred. Every part is poisonous except the red flesh of the berry, and the wood made the English longbow.
1nounyewA dark slow-growing evergreen often found in churchyards.
“An ancient yew stands in the churchyard, its dark branches shading the graves.”
yew is a tree.
Old English iw names the tree, with relatives across the Celtic and Germanic languages.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₁eyHw-
Proto-Germanic
*īhwaz
Proto-West Germanic
*īhu
Old English
īw
Middle English
ew
English, today
yew
From Middle English ew, from Old English īw, ēow, [both cognates of Welsh yw (“yews”), Irish eo, Old Irish eó respectively]; although the Old English form was conjectured to be from Proto-West Germanic īhu, from Proto-Germanic īhwaz (compare Icelandic ýr), masculine variant of īwō (compare Dutch ijf, German Eibe), from Proto-Indo-European h₁eyHw-. See also hit 𒄑𒂊𒅀𒀭 (“type of evergreen”), ltg īva (“bird cherry”), Lithuanian ievà (“bird cherry”), Russian и́ва (“willow”).Marlies Philippa et al., eds., Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands, A-
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA