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.

  • 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.
  • Blue; azure.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • An exclamation used by a driver to his horses or oxen, to command them to turn to the left. See haw, verb
  • 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 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.
  • 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 Cratægus tomentosa, the pear-haw, and sometimes C. Douglasii, the Western haw.
  • noun Same as May-haw.
  • To look: used especially in the imperative, haw! or look haw! to call attention.

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

  • noun An intermission or hesitation of speech, with a sound somewhat like haw! also, the sound so made.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • noun (Anat.) The third eyelid, or nictitating membrane. See Nictitating membrane, under nictitate.
  • noun A hedge; an inclosed garden or yard.
  • noun The fruit of the hawthorn.

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

  • interjection An imitation of laughter, often used to express scorn or disbelief. Often doubled or tripled (haw haw or haw haw haw).
  • noun Fruit of the hawthorn.
  • noun historical A hedge.
  • 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.

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

Imitative

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

Unknown

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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