stew

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A dish of meat and vegetables cooked slowly in liquid.

   She made a warming beef stew for dinner.

2. 2
   noun

   A state of worry or nervous excitement.

   He was in a stew about the exam results.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Stew entered Middle English from Old French estuve and originally named a cauldron or large cooking pot. The verb first meant to bathe in a hot or steam bath, then shifted from heating people to slowly cooking meat and vegetables in a closed vessel; the Old French word was probably based on Greek tuphos, meaning smoke or steam.

From Middle English stewe, stue, from Anglo-Norman estouve, Old French estuve (“bath, bathhouse”) (modern French étuve), from Medieval Latin stupha, of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Vulgar Latin *extufāre, from ex- + Ancient Greek τῦφος (tûphos, “smoke, steam”), from τύφω (túphō, “to smoke”). See also Italian stufare, Portuguese estufar. Compare also Old English stuf-bæþ (“a hot-air bath, vapour bath”); see stove.

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary