Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to study hard; thus stewing n., studying.

1866		Routledge’s Every Boy’s Annual 706: Cooper was stewing over his books [...] and couldn’t be found .
1889		Jrnl Mental Sciences (US) n.p.: I am quite sure I would never have had neuralgia, if it had not been for stewing up for exams.
1901		Boy’s Own Paper 13 July 655: I’ll keep this resolution / And sit me down and stew.
1916		Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 253: Hynes has no brains. He got through by stewing, pure stewing.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 22: Seymour’s back in town, the young man said, grasping again the spur of rock. Chucked medicine and going in for the army [...] Going over next week to stew.
1959		L.P. Boone ‘Gator Sl.’ AS XXXIV:2 156: Prior to testing, those who study hit the books, sweat, stew, or push their courses through.

2. (US Und.) to be executed in the electric chair.

1949

Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

3. used as euph. for screw v. (2d)

1943		R.L. Bellem ‘Shakedown Sham’ Dan Turner – Hollywood Detective May 🌐 ‘I must call the po-police and tell them I’ve k-killed a man!’ [...] ‘Stew the cops. I’ll notify them when the time comes.’.
1945		R.L. Bellem ‘Dead Don’t Dream’ in Hollywood Detective July 🌐 I rammed an elbow into his short ribs. ‘Stew his autograph,’ I snarled.

4. (US) to be irritated, concerned, worried; also used transitively, to irritate.

1946		‘Josephine Tey’ Miss Pym Disposes (1957) 101: [S]he closed the door quietly behind her. ‘Let her stew over that,’ she thought.
1955		P. Rabe Benny Muscles In (2004) 237: Keep her under wraps a week or so and that’ll really stew her old man.
1970		J. Bouton Ball Four 64: Linz was sitting beside me, stewing because he hadn’y played.
2022		G.M. Graff Watergate 626: Rodino walked out, leaving a red-faced Doar stewing.