ewe
/juː/noun
ewe is spelled E-W-E: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 37,459th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “ewe vs you” about 10 times a month (Bing, United States). As a noun, ewe means “A female sheep, as opposed to a ram” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of ewe is ewes.
How many letters and syllables are in ewe?
| Letters | 3: E-W-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 2 million words; the 37,459th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is ewe?
Ewe appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 37,459th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce ewe?
- /juː/
- /jʊ̯u/
- /ɪʊ̯/
Ewe has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-ewe.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-Ewe.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with ewe
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: eau, u, yew (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with ewe?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as ewe.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: wee.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of ewe
- ewes plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does ewe mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A female sheep, as opposed to a ram.
noun
- 1
An ethnic group who inhabit southeastern Ghana, Togo, and Benin.
adjective
- 1
Of or pertaining to the Ewe people or language.
noun
- 1
Initialism of extreme wildfire event.
- 2
slangEpilogue, What Epilogue?; a subgenre of Harry Potter fanfiction which pointedly ignores the epilogue of the final novel.
Bringing beloved characters back to life is one of the most recurrent elements of EWE fics, […]
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Ewe in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | brebis , éwé, Éwé |
| German | Schaf, weibliches Schaf, Mutterschaf, Zibbe, Aue |
| Portuguese | ovelha |
| Spanish | oveja, oveja madre |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does ewe come from?
From Middle English ewe, from Old English eowu, from Proto-West Germanic *awi, from Proto-Germanic *awiz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ówis (“sheep”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).