Also 7 kaw.
1. intr. Of rooks, crows, ravens, etc.: To utter their natural cry.
1590. Shaks., Mids. N., III. ii. 22. Russed-pated choughes … (Rising and cawing at the guns report).
1691. Locke, Lower. Interest (1692), 124 (J.). Pratling Jack-Daws do sometimes their young, who kawing and fluttering about the Nest, set all their young ones a gaping.
a. 1800. Coleridge, Raven. Round and round flew the Raven, and cawed to the blast.
1820. W. Irving, Sketch Bk., II. 195. The rooks cawed from the … tree tops.
2. transf. Of persons: To make a similar sound, or one contemptuously likened to it.
1589. Pappe w. Hatchet, E ij b. Like dawes, you will be cawing a bout Churches.
1756. Wesley, Wks. (1872), II. 381. He cawed and cawed, but could utter nothing, hardly three words together.
3. trans. To caw out: to utter with cawing.
1616. Holyday, Persius, V. D 2. [Thou] Hoarsly crow-like caw’st out some idle thing.
Hence Cawing vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1613. W. Browne, Brit. Past., I. v. The early rising Crow with clam’rous kawing.
1744. J. Claridge, Sheph. of Banbury’s Rules, p. iii. The cawing of Ravens.
1784. Cowper, Task, I. 203. Cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime.
1861. Clough, Lond. Idyll, 19. The cawing birds above.
