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Trim vs Hew - What's the difference?

trim | hew |

In transitive terms the difference between trim and hew

is that trim is to decorate or adorn; especially, to decorate a Christmas tree while hew is to shape; to form.

As an adjective trim

is physically fit.

As an adverb trim

is in good order, properly managed or maintained.

trim

English

(wikipedia trim)

Verb

  • To reduce slightly; to cut; especially, to remove excess; e.g. 'trim a hedge', 'trim a beard'. The adposition of can be used in present perfect tense to designate the removed part.
    • (present perfect example)
  • To decorate or adorn; especially, to decorate a Christmas tree.
  • * Milton
    • A rotten building newly trimmed over.
  • * Shakespeare
    • I was trimmed in Julia's gown.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)
    • , title=(The China Governess) , chapter=1 citation , passage=The half-dozen pieces […] were painted white and carved with festoons of flowers, birds and cupids. […]  The bed was the most extravagant piece.  Its graceful cane halftester rose high towards the cornice and was so festooned in carved white wood that the effect was positively insecure, as if the great couch were trimmed with icing sugar.}}
  • (nautical) To modify the angle of a vessel to the water by shifting cargo or ballast; to adjust for sailing; to assume, or cause a vessel to assume, a certain position, or trim, in the water. (FM 55-501).
  • * 1883 ,
    • The captain made us trim the boat, and we got her to lie a little more evenly.
  • (nautical) To modify the angle of a vessel's sails relative to the wind, especially to set the sails to the most advantageous angle.
  • (dated) To balance; to fluctuate between parties, so as to appear to favour each.
  • To make trim; to put in due order for any purpose; to make right, neat, or pleasing; to adjust.
  • * Goldsmith
    • The hermit trimmed his little fire.
  • (carpentry) To dress (timber); to make smooth.
  • (dated) To rebuke; to reprove; also, to beat.

    • Noun

    (en noun)
  • (uncountable) Decoration; especially, decoration placed along edges or borders.
    • Paint the house white with blue trim .
  • (countable) A haircut, especially a moderate one to touch up an existing style.
    • I went to the hairdresser for a trim but came back nearly bald.
  • Dress; gear; ornaments.
  • * Sir Walter Scott
    • seeing him just pass the window in his woodland trim
  • (countable) The manner in which something is equipped or adorned; order; disposition.
    • The car comes in three different trims .
    to be in good trim
    (Chapman)
  • Sexual intercourse.
  • (nautical) The fore-and-aft angle of the vessel to the water, with reference to the cargo and ballast; the manner in which a vessel floats on the water, whether on an even keel or down by the head or stern.
  • (nautical) The arrangement of the sails with reference to the wind.

    • Adjective

    (trimmer)
  • Physically fit.
  • :
  • Slender, lean.
  • :
  • Neat or smart in appearance.
  • :
  • *1599 , (William Shakespeare), (Much Ado About Nothing) ,
  • *:manhood is melted into curtsies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules that only tells a lie and swears it.
  • *
  • *:“A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron; and she looked it, always trim and trig and smooth of surface like a converted yacht cleared for action. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable,.

    • Adverb

    (-)
  • (nautical) In good order, properly managed or maintained.
  • (nautical) With sails well trimmed.

    • Usage notes

    * More often used in combinations, eg, "trim-sailed".

    Anagrams

    * ----

    hew

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) hewen, from (etyl) . See also (l).

    Verb

  • To chop away at; to whittle down; to mow down.
  • * Shakespeare
    • Hew them to pieces; hack their bones asunder.
  • * 1912 : (Edgar Rice Burroughs), (Tarzan of the Apes), Chapter 6
    • Among other things he found a sharp hunting knife, on the keen blade of which he immediately proceeded to cut his finger. Undaunted he continued his experiments, finding that he could hack and hew splinters of wood from the table and chairs with this new toy.
  • To shape; to form.
    • to hew out a sepulchre
  • * Bible, Is. li. 1
    • Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn .
  • * Alexander Pope
    • rather polishing old works than hewing out new
  • (US) To act according to, to conform to; usually construed with (to).
  • * 1905 , Albert Osborn, : A Biography , ] Jennings & Graham, [http://books.google.com/books?id=I3UEAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA428&dq=hewed page 428,
    • Few men measured up to his standard of righteousness; he hewed to the line.
  • * 1998 , and Lawrence Davidson, Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines , Collectors Press, Inc., ISBN 1-888054-12-3, page 103,
    • Inside the stories usually hewed to a consistent formula: no matter how outlandish and weird the circumstances, in the end everything had to have a natural, if not plausible, ending—frequently, though not always, involving a mad scientist.
  • * 2008 , , Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform Since Sputnik , Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-12990-8, page 28,
    • Faculty members and students alike were buzzing with the fashionable nostrums that dominated U.S. education discourse in the late sixties,
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2012 , date=May 27 , author=Nathan Rabin , title=TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “New Kid on the Block” (season 4, episode 8; originally aired 11/12/1992) , work=The Onion AV Club citation , page= , passage=Hewing to the old comedy convention of beginning a speech by randomly referencing something in eyesight, Homer begins his talk about the birds and the bees by saying that women are like refrigerators: they’re all about six feet tall and weigh three hundred pounds and make ice cubes. }}
  • *{{quote-web
    • , date =2013-10-02 , first =Alex , last =Pappademas , title =Leuqes! LEUQES! LEUQES!'' – The ''Shining sequel and what it says about Stephen King , site =Grantland.com , url =http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9751517/the-shining-sequel-career-stephen-king , accessdate = 2013-10-16 }}
  • *:King recovered the rights on the condition that he'd stop publicly disparaging Kubrick's version. "For a long time I hewed that line," he told CBS News in June. "And then Mr. Kubrick died. So now I figured, what the hell. I've gone back to saying mean things about it."
    • Derived terms
    * hewer * rough-hew

    Etymology 2

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) hue; colour
    • (Chaucer)
  • (obsolete) shape; form
    • (Spenser)
  • Destruction by cutting down.
  • * Spenser
    • Of whom he makes such havoc and such hew .
    (Webster 1913) English irregular verbs