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OneKitly

phew

interjectioncommon in dialogue

  • //fjuː//
  • /[ɸj̊u̥˥˩]/
  • //fɪu̯//

Used to express relief of tension, fatigue, or surprise.

interjection

  1. 1

    Used to express relief of tension, fatigue, or surprise.

    Phew, that took a long time to cook!

  2. 2

    Used to show disgust.

    Phew, it stinks in here!

Etymology

Attested since the early 17th century. An onomatopoeia for rapid exhalation, as one may make when a trying situation is over, or in order to get rid of an unpleasant odour. Compare Scots feuch, Spanish fu, Czech fuj, and many more such forms.

The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).