mew
noun · verb
Simple meaning
The crying sound of a cat.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
myooIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈmju
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The crying sound of a cat; a meow, especially of a kitten.
The sound made by a cat (or any sound resembling this)
The crying sound of a gull or buzzard.
verb
of a catespecially of a kitten
To meow.
of a bird
To moult.
of a gull or buzzard
To make its cry.
intransitiveslang
To flatten one's tongue against the roof of the mouth, with the aim of improving jaw and facial structure.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The crying sound of a cat; a meow, especially of a kitten.
Used this way, mew is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.