whist

See also: Whist

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: wĭst, IPA^(key): /wɪst/ or enPR: hwĭst, IPA^(key): /ʍɪst/ (in Scottish English and some English accents)

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪst
• Homophone: wist (in accents with the wine-whine merger)

Etymology 1

Alteration of whisk, perhaps so called from the notion of “whisking” up cards after each trick. Altered perhaps on assumption that the word was an interjection invoking silence, by influence of whist (“silent”).

Noun

whist (countable and uncountable, plural whists)

1. Any of several four-player card games, similar to bridge.
2. A session of playing this card game.

Derived terms

• bid whist
• bridge whist
• Chinese whist
• domino whist
• dummy whist
• German whist
• honeymoon whist
• long whist
• Minnesota whist
• Norwegian whist
• Russian whist
• short whist
• solo whist

 

Translations

card game

• Armenian: վիստ (hy) (vist)
• Bulgarian: вист m (vist)
• Czech: whist m
• Danish: whist c
• Dutch: wiezen (nl) n
• Finnish: visti (fi), tuppi (fi)
• French: whist (fr) m
• German: Whist (de) n
• Greek: ουίστ (el) n (ouíst)
• Icelandic: vist f
• Ido: wisto (io)
• Macedonian: ви́ст m (víst)
• Polish: wist (pl) m
• Russian: вист (ru) (vist)

See also

• whist on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Whist in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Etymology 2

From Middle English whist (“silent”), possibly onomatopoeic.

Interjection

whist

1. Alternative spelling of whisht. Silence!, quiet!, hush!, shhh!, shush!
   • 1860, anonymous author, Heroes and Hunters of the West‎^[1], HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2008:

     … for scarcely had they descended one hundred feet, when a low “whist” from the girl, warned them of present danger.

Verb

whist (third-person singular simple present whists, present participle whisting, simple past and past participle whisted)

1. (transitive, rare) To hush or shush; to still.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     o was the Titaness put downe and whist

2. (intransitive, rare) To become silent.
   • 1557 July 1, Virgil, “The Fowrth Boke of Virgiles Aenæis”, in Henry [Howard, Earl] of Surrey, transl., edited by William Bolland, Certain Bokes of Virgiles Aenaeis, Turned into English Meter ([Roxburghe Club Publications; I]), London: […] A[braham] J[ohn] Valpy, […], published 1814, →OCLC:

     The fields whist, beasts, and fowls of divers bue

Adjective

whist (comparative more whist, superlative most whist)

1. (rare) Silent, hushed.
   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

     Come unto these yellow sands, / And then take hands: / Courtsied when you have and kiss'd / The wild waves whist, / Foot it featly here and there; / And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear. […]

Anagrams

• Whits, swith, whits, wisht, withs

Czech

Etymology

Borrowed from English whist.

Noun

whist m inan

1. whist

Declension

Declension of whist (hard masculine inanimate)

	singular	plural
nominative	whist	whisty
genitive	whistu	whistů
dative	whistu	whistům
accusative	whist	whisty
vocative	whiste	whisty
locative	whistu	whistech
instrumental	whistem	whisty

Danish

Etymology

From English whist.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /vest/, [ˈʋesd̥]
• Homophones: vidst, vist

Noun

whist c (singular definite whisten, not used in plural form)

1. whist (a card game)

Declension

Declension of whist

common gender	Singular
	indefinite	definite
nominative	whist	whisten
genitive	whists	whistens

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English whist.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wist/

Noun

whist m (uncountable)

1. whist

Further reading

• “whist”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Italian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English whist.

Noun

whist m (invariable)

1. whist (card game)