Streowian

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 Old English word for scattering items or material so that they lie spread over the ground or another surface
3. Used in Old English to describe casting or spreading things loosely across a floor, path, or other surface

Etymology: Old English "streowian" is the ancestor of modern "strew," and its story is mostly one of simple continuity. It belonged to the Germanic family of verbs for spreading things out, and its Proto-Germanic relatives survive in German "streuen" (to scatter, sprinkle) and Dutch "strooien" (to strew). In Anglo-Saxon households it described the everyday work of laying rushes, herbs, or straw across floors, a practice that gave the verb its concrete, domestic character. The word went through a spelling and sound change over the centuries. The Old English "eo" sound and the "w" shifted in Middle English, producing "strewen" and then "strew," with the final vowel eventually dropping away. Many readers will recognise the older form in the past participle "strewn," which kept an older shape that the simple past "strewed" later rivalled and sometimes replaced.