STEW (from the French stuve, i. e. therma, balneum), those places which were permitted in England to women of professed incontinency, and that for hire would prostitute their bodies to all comers; so called, because dissolute persons are wont to prepare them selves for venereous acts by bathing; and hot baths were by Homer reckoned among the effeminate sort of pleasures. These stews were suppressed by King Hen. VIII. about the year 1546.