Streowan

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Old English verb meaning to scatter or spread something loosely over a surface or across an area
2. An archaic verb for scattering items about so they lie over a surface, as in an ancient English form of strew
3. Describes the act of sprinkling or distributing things widely across ground or floor, an Old English root of the modern word strew

Etymology: Old English "streowian" meant "to strew" in the sense of spreading something loose over a surface, and it is the ancestor of the English verb "strew." Its meaning was mostly physical and domestic: Anglo-Saxons would scatter rushes, herbs, or straw across floors, and the same idea covered sprinkling sand or spreading seed. The verb belongs to the Germanic family that also gave German "streuen," meaning to scatter or sprinkle. Over the centuries, the English form settled into "strew" and its past participle "strewn," which survives in phrases like "strewn with litter." The word has changed very little in sense since Old English, so the older physical picture of loose material spread over a floor or field still underlies it.