rough-hew
Example Sentences
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It also engages the idea that some things may be hard-wired into our blood, echoing Hamlet’s phrase about how there’s a “divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.”
From New York Times ● Apr. 17, 2016
If some should find themselves by me the worse, And this my work prove not a model true, To that which I at least rough-hew, Succeeding hands will give the finish due.
From Fables of La Fontaine — a New Edition, with Notes by Wright, Elizur
Are we to understand, then, that the architects thought of nothing but "hard utility," and that it was some æsthetic divinity that shaped their blocks, rough-hew them how they might?
From America To-day, Observations and Reflections by Archer, William
Indeed character consists in little acts, well and honourably performed; daily life being the quarry from which we build it up, and rough-hew the habits which form it.
From Self help; with illustrations of conduct and perseverance by Smiles, Samuel
"Then you don't believe there is a Destiny that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will?"
From The Hidden Places by Sinclair, Bertrand W.
Columbus, a rough-hewed industrial town, had a sizable Black population, as well as Black schools, churches and businesses.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 18, 2026
The Los Angeles depicted in “This Fool” was a rough-hewed paradise.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 21, 2024
From the outside, with its rough-hewed stones flattered by brilliant sunlight and its windows overlooking the golden Dome of the Rock, the 200-year-old home in the heart of the Muslim Quarter is a Jerusalem postcard.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 27, 2023
Mr. Badalamenti’s name conjured the image of an old-world maestro, but he was in fact a wisecracking, golf-playing grandfather with a rough-hewed Brooklyn burr.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 12, 2022
He had rough-hewed his end, but the divinity had shaped it.
From There & Back by MacDonald, George
After all, it is ridiculous wasting so much time and energy in rough-hewing our ends, when the shaping lies with other hands than ours.
From The Paternoster Ruby by Walk, Charles Edmonds
He had designs—'dear plots'—but they were other than fell out—a rough-hewing that was shaped to a different end.
From The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 by MacDonald, George
I don't think there's any chance of an election; but Heaven knows I want the rough-hewing of a political campaign.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 68, June, 1863 by Various
The divinity, however, was taking its course, both rough-hewing and shaping the ends of the two.
From Stephen Archer and Other Tales by MacDonald, George
The powers of nature are now otherwise employed than in rough-hewing the surface of the globe.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 341, March, 1844 by Various
Mr. Sarris has fashioned for her a rough-hewn, splintery narrative voice, her English “a mess of high and low and everything in between.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 11, 2026
He’s rough-hewn, simple, hardworking, not immune to the impermanent nature of the world but brought up short when that world goes awry; Mr. Edgerton has to give emotional depth to a laconic character.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 20, 2025
His vocal addendum is a wax stamp finalizing the rough-hewn collection of distinct voices.”
From Salon ● Jun. 16, 2025
It’s three miles from there to State Route 92, a trek through mesquite and grassland, floodplains and furrows that serve as a rough-hewn pathway to the two-lane blacktop and the interior that lies beyond.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 2, 2025
It was a tiny cube-shaped room with a large rough-hewn stone standing against the north wall.
From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline
