wheen

See also: Wheen

English

Alternative forms

• whean, whin

Etymology

From Middle English *when, quhein (also whon), from Old English hwēne, hwǣne (“somewhat, a little”), instrumental form of hwōn (“little, few, a little, trifle, somewhat, a little while”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʍiːn/, /wiːn/

Noun

wheen (plural wheens)

1. (UK dialectal) A little; a small number.
2. (UK dialectal, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Mid-Ulster) A quantity; a goodly number.
   • 1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLC:

     I have six terriers at hame, forbye twa couple of slow-hunds, five grews, and a wheen other dogs.

   • 1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:

     She never seemed to want for siller; the house was as bright as a new preen, the yaird better delved than the manse garden; and there was routh of fowls and doos about the small steading, forbye a wheen sheep and milk-kye in the fields.

References

• “wheen”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.