• (RP, British) IPA: /hɔː/
• (America, America) IPA: /hɔː/

From Middle English ha.

1. An imitation of laughter, often used to express scorn or disbelief. Often doubled or tripled (haw haw or haw haw haw).

   You think that song was good? Haw!

   • 1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, published 1959, →OCLC ↗:

     The bitter laugh laughs at that which is not good, it is the ethical laugh. The hollow laugh laughs at that which is not true, it is the intellectual laugh. Not good! Not true! Well well. But the mirthless laugh is the dianoetic laugh, down the snout — Haw! — so.

2. An intermission or hesitation of speech, with a sound somewhat like "haw"; the sound so made.
   • 1720, William Congreve, An Impossible Thing:

     Hums or haws.

haw (haws, present participle hawing; simple past and past participle hawed)

1. To stop, in speaking, with a sound like haw; to speak with interruption and hesitation.

From Middle English hawe, from Old English haga, from Proto-Germanic *hagô (compare Western Frisian haach, Dutch haag, German Hag, Norwegian Bokmål hage), from Proto-Indo-European *kagʰom (compare Welsh cae, Latin caulae, cohum ("strap between plowbeam and yoke"), Russian кош, коша́ра ("sheepfold"), Sanskrit कक्ष), from *kagʰ- 'to catch, grasp' (compare Welsh cau, osc kahad.

haw (plural haws)

1. Fruit of the hawthorn.

   Synonyms: hawthorn berry

2. (historical) A hedge.
3. (obsolete) Something that has little value or importance; a whit or jot.
   • 1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], Act II ↗:

     wele not leaue a man of lawe,
     Nor a paper worth a hawe,
     And make him worſe than a dawe,
     That ſhall ſtand againſt Iacke Strawe.

• French: haie

Assumed to be interjectory, but compare Old English hawian

1. An instruction for a horse or other animal to turn towards the driver, typically left.

   Coordinate term: gee

• French: dia
• German: hü(st)
• Portuguese: ôa, ôô

haw (haws, present participle hawing; simple past and past participle hawed)

1. (of an animal) To turn towards the driver, typically to the left.

   Antonyms: gee

   This horse won't haw when I tell him to.

2. To cause (an animal) to turn left.

   Antonyms: gee

   You may have to go to the front of the pack and physically haw the lead dog.

Late Middle English (denoting a discharge from the eye), of uncertain origin.

haw

1. (countable, anatomy) The third eyelid, or nictitating membrane.
2. (uncountable) A disease of the nictitating membrane.

From Old English haga.

1. Surname.
2. A river in the US state of North Carolina.