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stew

Pronunciation: /stʃʉː/

The English word “stew” has 15 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A cooking-dish used for boiling; a cauldron.
  2. A heated bath-room or steam-room; also, a hot bath.
  3. A brothel.
  4. A prostitute.
  5. A dish cooked by stewing.
  6. A pool in which fish are kept in preparation for eating.
  7. An artificial bed of oysters.
  8. A state of agitated excitement, worry, or confusion.
  9. Unwanted background noise recorded by the microphone.
  10. A cloud of fine particles or droplets; dust, smoke, vapor, mist, or sea-spray.
  11. A steward or stewardess on an airplane or boat.

verb

  1. To cook (food) by slowly boiling or simmering.
  2. To brew (tea) for too long, so that the flavour becomes too strong.
  3. To suffer under uncomfortably hot conditions.
  4. To be in a state of elevated anxiety or anger.

Etymology

From Middle English stewe, stue, from Anglo-Norman estouve, Old French estuve (“bath, bathhouse”) (modern French étuve), from Medieval Latin stupha, of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Vulgar Latin *extufāre, from ex- + Ancient Greek τῦφος (tûphos, “smoke, steam”), from τύφω (túphō, “to smoke”). See also Italian stufare, Portuguese estufar. Compare also Old English stuf-bæþ (“a hot-air bath, vapour…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.