rough-hew
Americanverb (used with object)
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to hew (timber, stone, etc.) roughly or without smoothing or finishing.
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to shape roughly; give crude form to.
verb
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to cut or hew (timber, stone, etc) roughly without finishing the surface
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Also: roughcast. to shape roughly or crudely
Etymology
Origin of rough-hew
First recorded in 1520–30
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It also engages the idea that some things may be hard-wired into our blood, echoing Hamlet’s phrase about how there’s a “divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.”
From New York Times • Apr. 17, 2016
Back of both men and circumstances, however, stands sovereign Providence, shaping our ends, rough-hew them how we will.
From Luther Examined and Reexamined A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation by Dau, W. H. T. (William Herman Theodore)
To shape the ends of wood skewers, i. e., to point them, requires a degree of skill: any one can rough-hew them.
From A Logic Of Facts Or, Every-day Reasoning by Holyoake, George Jacob
But it has been written by a wise man, “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will,” and Tom Blount was soon to find out its truth.
From The Vast Abyss The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam by Fenn, George Manville
But destiny that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will, had made up its mind for further revelations, and against destiny even Doctor Frank was powerless.
From Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters A Novel by Fleming, May Agnes
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
