mews

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   chiefly British, a short street or courtyard lined with buildings that were originally stables and are now often homes

   They rented a small house in a quiet London mews.

2. 2
   noun

   a group of stables, carriage houses, or garages built around a yard or along a lane

   The old mews behind the mansion had room for six carriages.

3. 3
   noun

   historically, cages or an enclosure where trained hawks were kept while molting

   The falconer inspected the mews before returning the hawks to their perches.

Originally the plural of mew, a cage or building where hawks were confined while molting, from Old French mue, 'a change or molt.' The royal hawk mews at Charing Cross became stables in the sixteenth century; their name survived, then spread to other stable courts and the lanes formed by their later conversion into houses.

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