Pronounced: MAL-uh FIE-dee, adv/adj
Notes: I didn’t know this phrase existed, but perhaps you can work out the meaning?
Yesterday’s word
The word thew means
- muscular power or development
- strength, vitality
- muscle, sinew (usually used in plural)
First usage
Our word came into English before 900
Background / Comments
I have a recollection of reading the phrase “smote (maybe ‘smite’) thew and sinew”, but I cannot recall where I ran across it. It is possible that my recollection is amiss. In any event, our word came from Middle English, where it could means “custom; habit; personal quality; or virtue”. Our word was falling out of fashion in the 1500s, but it acquired the meaning of physical strength, which changed to refer to the muscles that create physical strength. I’m told that it often paired with “sinew”, so perhaps I did read it somewhere.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 