Noun

1. A tree or shrub of the genus Taxus, with dark-green flat needle like leaves and seeds bearing red arils.
2. The wood of the yew.

   • 1786: To prevent a too great consumption of yew, bowyers were directed to make four bows of witch-hazel, ash or elm, to one of yew, and no person under seventeen years of age, unless possessed of moveables worth forty marks, of the son of parents having an estate of ten pounds per annum might shoot in an yew bow, under a penalty of 6s. 8d. — Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, page 37.