Definition of "hew out" []

• Carve out, or cut out a form, or to make something hollow by using heavy cutting tools such as an axe. (verb)

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• "“Are there any snakes?” he asked Nat Lucas, whom he liked very much, as he did old Dick Widdicombe, full seventy years old—why had London sent aged men to hew out a new place?"
• "These dimwitted country people would debark in Philadelphia, discover that the settled -- Thrower did not call them "civilized" -- portions of Pennsylvania were too crowded for them, and immediately head westward into the Red country to hew out a farm among the trees."