fewmet

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Apparently from Anglo-Norman *fumets, from Latin fumāre (“it smokes, steams”). Attested since the fifteenth century.[1] Compare fumet, apparently from French fumier (“dung”).[2]

Noun

fewmet (countable and uncountable, plural fewmets)

  1. (archaic) alternative spelling of fumet
    • 1576, George Tuberville, The Noble Arte of Venerie or Hvnting‎, page 66; republished as Tuberville's Booke of Hunting, 1576, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908:
      for if the Hartes haue had any disturbaunce, or haue bene hurte, then they make theyr fewmet oftentimes drie, burned and sharpe at that one ende
    • 1641, Ben Jonson, The Sad Shepherd:
      For by his slot, his entries, and his port,
      His frayings, fewmets, he [the stag] doth promise sport
    • 1843 [1327], William Twici, The Art of Hunting‎, page 19; translation by Henry Dryden, Daventry: Thomas Barrett, 1843:
      Sir Hunter, how is a man to know the Hart […] in what pasture he has been, whether in wheat, or in oats, or in beans, or in peas? I will tell you, if the fewmets are yellow, and in globular masses that is of wheat, or of oats. And if he has been in peas or in beans, if the Hart is fat, the fewmets will be black, and in globular masses, and the fewmet small.
    • 1969, Beard & Kennedy, Bored of the Rings, page 54:
      The halberd has fallen! The fewmets have hit the windmill!
    • 1973, Madeleine L'Engle, A Wind in the Door:
      “He’s going to where my dragons were! Come on, Meg, maybe he’s found fewmets!” ¶ She hurried after boy and dog. “How would you know a dragon dropping? Fewmets probably look like bigger and better cowpies.”

References
  1. John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “fumet, n.1”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.
  2. “Fumet”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
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