Whit

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See also: whit

English

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Etymology 1

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Noun

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Whit (plural Whits)

  1. The season of Whitsuntide.
Derived terms
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Etymology 2

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Shortening of the surname of Dick Whittington, London mayor who funded the rebuilding of the prison.

Proper noun

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the Whit

  1. (originally thieves' cant, now archaic or historical) Newgate Prison in London, England (particularly as it was in the 15- and 1600s).
    • 1951, Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman:
      A Bow Street Runner says "I knew a cove as talked the way you do – leastways, in the way of business I knew him! In fact, you remind me of him very strong [] He was on the dub-lay, and very clever with his fambles. He ended up in the Whit, o’ course."
    • 2020 May 5, Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century, Verso Books, →ISBN:
      One of the strong drinks brewed in the Whit, a place as noted for the variety of its potions as the irony of its expressions, was called 'South Sea'. The gin brewed in Newgate was []

Anagrams

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Yola

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Middle English White.

Pronunciation

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Proper noun

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Whit

  1. a surname, equivalent to English White
    • 1987, The Manuscript of Jacob Poole's Glossary of the Dialect of Forth and Bargy:
      Whit
      White

References

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  • T. P. Dolan (1987) Eighteenth-Century lreland / lris an dá chultúr Vol. 2, Eighteenth-Century lreland Society, page 205