Meanings
- archaicSigns left by game that is hunted, such as tracks or scent, the track itself.
Some hounds fell on the fewte left by the fox, Using their craft to cross and cross again.
2003, John Cummins, The Art of Medieval Hunting: The Hound and the Hawk, →ISBN, page 1442 more examples
As wary as wolves through the wood stalking / to the marches rode there Mordred's hunters, / huge and hungry hounds beside them / the fewte followed fiercely baying.
late 1930s, JRR Tolkien, The Fall of ArthurMadden likewise, in his Glossary to Gawayn, had explained “Wewter,” as denoting the huntsman who tracked the deer by the fewte or odour.
1968, Promptorium parvulorum sive clericorum
Origin
- Old Frenchfuite“the fleeing, flight”
- Middle Englishfeute
- Englishfewte
From Middle English feute, itself from Old French fuite (“the fleeing, flight”), as of what is left and seen from fleeing game.
More words from Middle English, Old French
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
fewte. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fewte
“fewte.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fewte. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “fewte,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fewte.
Source: fewte on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.