thewthew

The story

From Middle English theu, thew (‘way of behaving towards others, bearing, manners; habit, practice; good manners, courtesy; characteristic act; characteristic, trait; custom, tradition; established rule, ordinance; injunction; moral character; (in the plural) set of moral principles, morals; moral quality, virtue or vice; might, power, strength’) [and other forms] (often in the plural form theus, thewes), from Old English þēaw (‘general practice of a community, custom, usage; mode of conduct, behaviour, manner; (in the plural) customs, virtue’) [and other forms], from Proto-West Germanic *þauw, from Proto-Germanic *þawwaz (‘custom; habit’); further etymology uncertain, tentatively identified by the Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen (Etymological Dictionary of Old High German) as a reflex of an s-less variant of Proto-Indo-European *(s)tāu-, *(s)te- (‘to stand; to place’), from *steh₂- (‘to stand (up)’).