Schewing

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. An archaic form of showing, meaning the act of displaying, exhibiting or demonstrating something to others
2. Old spelling for the act of exhibiting or revealing something so that others can see or understand it
3. Archaic term for presenting, displaying or making something visible or evident to an observer

Etymology: "Sceawian" in Old English meant "to look at, behold, examine," and its sense of showing comes from making someone look. "Shew" grew out of that causative idea, "to cause to see." The spelling "schewing" is an older orthographic variant of "shewing," the present participle of "shew," which is itself a spelling of "show." The root goes back to a Proto-Germanic form, and it survives in German "schauen" ("to look") and Dutch "schouwen." English kept the look-at sense for a time before the causative sense became dominant, and the "sch-" spelling belongs to the Middle English period, when scribes wrote the verb in several ways before standard spelling settled on "show."