Past tense and past participle of 'hew'; chopped or shaped with a tool.
Regular past tense formation from 'hew' (Old English 'heawan'). While some verbs maintain irregular pasts like 'hew/hew/hewn,' the '-ed' ending became standard for most English verbs by the modern period.
Interestingly, both 'hewed' and 'hewn' are accepted past participles—'hewed' is the regular form while 'hewn' survives as a literary or archaic variant, giving us flexibility that our ancestors didn't always have.
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