Meanings
plural heronsews · alternative handsaw · alternative hernshaw · alternative herneshaw · alternative heronshaw · alternative heronshew
- dialectalA heron (originally specifically when small or young).
As when a cast of Faulcons make their flight / At an Herneshaw, that lyes aloft on wing […].
1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC1 more example
Pages, with ready blade, were there, / The mighty meal to carve and share: / O'er capon, heron-shew, and crane, / And princely peacock's gilded train […].
1805, Walter Scott, “(please specify the page)”, in The Lay of the Last Minstrel: A Poem, London: […] [James Ballantyne] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, […], and A[rchibald] Constable and Co., […], →OCLC
Origin
- Old Frenchhaironcel
- Middle Englishheronsewe
- Englishheronsew
From Middle English heronsewe, from Old French haironcel, diminutive of heiron.
More words from Middle English, Old French
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
heronsew. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/heronsew
“heronsew.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/heronsew. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “heronsew,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/heronsew.
Source: heronsew on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.