/ stjuː; NAmE stuː/ noun , verb
■ noun
[ U , C ] a dish of meat and vegetables cooked slowly in liquid in a container that has a lid :
beef stew and dumplings
I'm making a stew for lunch.
•
IDIOMS
- get (yourself) / be in a stew (about / over sth)
■ verb
1.
to cook sth slowly, or allow sth to cook slowly, in liquid in a closed dish :
[ vn ]
stewed apples
[ v ]
The meat needs to stew for two hours.
—see also stewed
2.
[ v , usually + adv. / prep. ] to think or worry about sth :
I've been stewing over the problem for a while.
Leave him to stew.
•
IDIOMS
- let sb stew in their own juice
••
WORD ORIGIN
Middle English (in the sense cauldron ): from Old French estuve (related to estuver heat in steam), probably based on Greek tuphos smoke, steam. The noun sense (mid 18th cent.) is directly from the verb (dating from late Middle English ).