Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The fruit of a hawthorn.
  • noun A hawthorn or similar tree or shrub.
  • interjection Used to command an animal pulling a load to turn to the left.
  • intransitive verb To turn to the left.
  • noun An utterance used by a speaker who is fumbling for words.
  • intransitive verb To fumble in speaking.
  • noun A nictitating membrane, especially of a domesticated animal.
  • noun An inflamed condition of this membrane.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • An exclamation used by a driver to his horses or oxen, to command them to turn to the left. See haw, verb
  • To speak with hesitation and the interruption of drawling and unmeaning sounds: as, to hum and haw.
  • noun The inner eyelid or nictitating membrane of dogs: usually concealed, but noticeable in the bloodhound.
  • noun The fruit of the hawthorn, Cratægus Oxyacantha.
  • noun The fruit of any of the species of Cratægus.
  • noun The plant which bears such fruit: usually with some qualifying word denoting, for the most part, the character of the fruit.
  • noun The Viburnum prunifolium, the black haw of the United States. See Viburnum.
  • noun Any berry.
  • noun Proverbially, a thing of no value.
  • An unmeaning syllable marking the pauses of hesitating speech. It takes various vocal forms, variously indicated in writing. See the etymology.
  • noun An intermission or hesitation of speech marked by the unmeaning syllable haw.
  • To look: used especially in the imperative, haw! or look haw! to call attention.
  • noun An inclosed piece of land; a hedged inclosure; a small field; a yard.
  • noun Specifically A churchyard.
  • noun A green plot in a valley.
  • noun Cratægus tomentosa, the pear-haw, and sometimes C. Douglasii, the Western haw.
  • noun Same as May-haw.
  • Blue; azure.
  • To turn to the left: the opposite of gee: said of horses and cattle.
  • To turn or cause to come to the near side: as, to haw oxen.
  • noun An excrescence in the eye; specifically, in farriery, a diseased or disordered condition of the third eyelid of a horse: generally in the plural, haws.
  • noun The third eyelid, nictitating membrane, or winker of a horse.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To stop, in speaking, with a sound like haw; to speak with interruption and hesitation.
  • intransitive verb speaking hesitantly and inarticulately, with numerous pauses and interjections.
  • intransitive verb To turn to the near side, or toward the driver; -- said of cattle or a team: a word used by teamsters in guiding their teams, and most frequently in the imperative. See gee.
  • intransitive verb [Colloq.] to go from one thing to another without good reason; to have no settled purpose; to be irresolute or unstable.
  • noun A hedge; an inclosed garden or yard.
  • noun The fruit of the hawthorn.
  • noun An intermission or hesitation of speech, with a sound somewhat like haw! also, the sound so made.
  • noun (Anat.) The third eyelid, or nictitating membrane. See Nictitating membrane, under nictitate.
  • transitive verb To cause to turn, as a team, to the near side, or toward the driver.
  • transitive verb [Colloq.] to lead this way and that at will; to lead by the nose; to master or control.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • interjection An instruction for a horse or other animal to turn left.
  • verb of an animal To turn left.
  • verb To cause (an animal) to turn left.
  • noun Fruit of the hawthorn.
  • noun historical A hedge.
  • interjection An imitation of laughter, often used to express scorn or disbelief. Often doubled or tripled (haw haw or haw haw haw).

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the nictitating membrane of a horse
  • verb utter `haw'

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English haga.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Imitative.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Origin unknown.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Unknown

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English hawe, from Old English haga ("enclosure, hedge"), from Proto-Germanic *hagô (compare West Frisian haach, Dutch haag, German Hag ("hedged farmland"), from Proto-Indo-European *kaghon (compare Welsh cae ("hedge"), Latin caulae ("sheepfold, enclosure"), cohum ("strap between plowbeam and yoke"), Russian кош (koš, "tent"), кошара (košára, "sheepfold"), Sanskrit कक्ष (kakṣa, "curtain wall"), from *kaghe/o 'to catch, grasp' (compare Welsh cau ("to clasp"), Oscan kahad ("may he seize"), Albanian kam, ke ("to have, hold")).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Imitative

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Examples

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  • fruit of the hawthorn.

    July 13, 2007

  • A haw year, a snaw year. --an old English proverb

    September 16, 2011