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Mewl vs Mew - What's the difference?

mewl | mew |

As verbs the difference between mewl and mew

is that mewl is to cry weakly with a soft, high-pitched sound; to whimper; to whine while mew is to shut away, confine, lock up.

As nouns the difference between mewl and mew

is that mewl is a soft cry or whimper; an act of mewling while mew is a gull, seagull.

As an interjection mew is

a cat's cry.

mewl

English

Verb

  • To cry weakly with a soft, high-pitched sound; to whimper; to whine.
  • * 1599 , , As You Like It
    • And one man in his time plays many parts, / His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, / Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms; / Then the whining school-boy, ...
  • * 1844 , , Martin Chuzzlewit
    • You're a pretty clog to be tied to a man for life, you mewling , white-faced cat!
  • * 2007 , Kiesa Kay, Mimosa May, Tornado Alley , page 11,
    • My father started rubbing and rubbing on Mittens, scruffying her fur the wrong way, and she mewled her protests.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A soft cry or whimper; an act of mewling .
  • * 1995 , , Natália Costa, Ronald W. Sousa (translators), The Murmuring Coast , page 89,
    • There would have been total silence if it hadn't been for the sea nearby, mewling. Indeed, that same mewl added to the sleepy image that filled the dormant house.
  • * 2009 , Mickey Erlach, Cruising for Bad Boys , page 61,
    • I let out another moaning mewl , biting my lip as I awaited whatever he planned.
  • * 2010 , Chris Wooding, Malice , page 15,
    • The scratching stopped, and there was another piteous mewl from behind the door.

    mew

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) mewe, from (etyl) 'to roar', Old Church Slavonic (myjati) 'to mew'.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) A gull, seagull.
  • * , II.xii:
    • A daungerous and detestable place, / To which nor fish nor fowle did once approch, / But yelling Meawes , with Seagulles hoarse and bace [...].

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) mue, (muwe), and (etyl) .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) A prison, or other place of confinement.
  • (obsolete) A hiding place; a secret store or den.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , II.vii:
    • Ne toung did tell, ne hand these handled not, / But safe I haue them kept in secret mew , / From heauens sight, and powre of all which them pursew.
  • (falconry) A cage for hawks, especially while moulting.
  • *, vol.I, New York, 2001, p.243:
    • A horse in a stable that never travels, a hawk in a mew that seldom flies, are both subject to diseases; which, left unto themselves, are most free from any such encumbrances.
  • (falconry, in the plural) A building or set of buildings where moulting birds are kept.

    • Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To shut away, confine, lock up.
  • * c. 1669 , John Donne, "Loves Warre":
    • To mew me in a Ship, is to inthrall / Mee in a prison, that weare like to fall [...].
  • * Shakespeare
    • More pity that the eagle should be mewed .
  • * Dryden
    • Close mewed in their sedans, for fear of air.
  • (of a bird) To moult.
    • The hawk mewed his feathers.
  • * Dryden
    • Nine times the moon had mewed her horns.

    Etymology 3

    Onomatopoeic

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The crying sound of a cat; a meow.

    • Verb

    (en verb)
  • (of a cat) To meow.

    • Interjection

    (en interjection)
  • A cat's cry.

    • Anagrams

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