“ MEW. (1) An imitative word, also spelled miaou, representing the cry of a cat or of sea-birds. The name mew, usually sea-mew, as applied to the Larus canus, or common sea-gull, is, according to Skeat, also imitative. As the name of the sea-bird it appears in Du. meeuw, Ger. Möwe, and other languages. (2) (Through Fr. muer, from Lat. mutare, to change) , a term originally applied in French to the moulting of a hawk or falcon, and then to the caging of the bird during that period; thus “to mew up” has come to mean to confine. ”