hiew

• hēow, hīw, hīow, hēo

Inherited from Proto-West Germanic *hiwi, from Proto-Germanic *hiwją (“shape, form, appearance, blee”), from Proto-Indo-European *kew- (“skin, complexion”).

Cognate with Bornholm Danish hy (“complexion”), Gothic 𐌷𐌹𐍅𐌹 (hiwi, “form, appearance”), Old Norse hý (“down of birds”), Swedish hy, Sanskrit छवि (chavi, “skin, hide, beauty, splendour”).

• IPA^(key): /xi͜yːw/, [hi͜yːw]

hīew n

1. form, appearance, likeness
   • Early 11th c., Defensor's translation of Liber Scintillarum

     ...nā besēoh þū on wīfes hīw...

     ...do not look at a woman's appearance...

   • c. 996, Ælfric's Lives of Saints

     Þā ġeseah hē onġemang ōðrum twēġen ġeonge cneohtas, þæt hīe wǣron wlitiġe on hīewe and lange on wæstmum.

     Then he (Trajan) spotted two boys in the crowd and noticed they were beautiful in appearance and tall in stature.

   • c. 992, Ælfric, "The Epiphany of the Lord"

     Eft embe ġēara ymbrynum hē wearð on his fulluhte on þysum dæġe middanġearde ġeswutelod, ðāðā sē Hālga Gāst, on culfran hīwe, uppon him ġereste, and þæs Fæder stemn of heofenum hlūde sweġde, þūs cweðende, "Þēs is mīn lēofa Sunu, þe mē wel līcað; ġehȳrað him."

     Again, after a course of years, he was, at his baptism, manifested to the world, when the Holy Ghost, in likeness of a dove, rested upon him, and the voice of the Father sounded loudly from heaven, thus saying, "This is my beloved Son who well pleaseth me; obey him."

2. form, character
   • c. 992, Ælfric, "The Nativity of St. Andrew the Apostle"

     Ġif ðū leornian wille hū þæt ġewurðan mæġe, þonne undernim ðū leorning-cnihtes hīw, þæt þū ðās ġerȳnu leornian mæġe.

     If you wish to learn how that can be, then undertake the character of a disciple (literally “of a learning-boy”), to be able to learn this mystery.

3. shape
4. colo(u)r

• While hīew is the expected outcome of Proto-Germanic *hiwją in the Early West Saxon dialect, the form hīw is much more common within the corpus, almost to the total exclusion of the expected form. As the Late West Saxon of Ælfric also exclusively uses the form hīw, and never *hȳw, it is likely that the EWS hīw form reflects a genuine, irregular sound change, predating the smoothing of the īe diphthong in LWS. This change is also seen in nīewe, as well as a similar change occuring for the suffix -sċiepe (though for the ie diphthong).

Strong a-stem:

• Middle English: hewe
  • English: hue
  • Scots: hew, hu, hue