whin
English
Pronunciation
- enPR: wīn, IPA(key): /wɪn/
- Lua error in Module:parameters at line 159: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value wine/whine is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. enPR: hwīn, IPA(key): /ʍɪn/
- Rhymes: -ɪn
- Homophone: win (accents with the wine-whine merger)
Etymology 1
From Middle English whynne, from Old Norse hvein (“gorse, furze”) (compare Norwegian kvein (“bent grass”), Swedish ven (“bent grass”), dialectal hven (“swamp”)), apparently from hvein (“swampy land”), from Proto-Germanic *hwainō, *hwin- (“swamp; moor”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱʷeyn- (“to soil; mud; filth”). Compare Latin caenum (“filth”), Latin inquīnō (“to sully; soil”).
Noun
whin (countable and uncountable, plural whins)
- Gorse; furze (Ulex spp.).
- 1790, Robert Burns, Tam o' Shanter, 1828, Thomas Park (editor), Works of the British Poets, Volume XX: The Poems of Robert Burns, page 65,
- By this time he was cross the ford, / Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor'd; / And past the birks and meikle stane, / Whare drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane; / And through the whins, and by the cairn, / Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn; / And near the thorn, aboon the well, / Whare Mungo's mither hang'd hersel.
- 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song, A Scots Quair, 1995, Canongate Books, page 38,
- And sometimes they clambered down […] and saw the whin bushes climb black the white hills beside them and far and away the blink of lights across the moors where folk lay happed and warm.
- 1790, Robert Burns, Tam o' Shanter, 1828, Thomas Park (editor), Works of the British Poets, Volume XX: The Poems of Robert Burns, page 65,
- The plant woad-waxen (Genista tinctoria).
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Gray to this entry?)
Derived terms
- moor whin (Lua error in Module:taxlink at line 68: Parameter "ver" is not used by this template.)
- needle whin (Lua error in Module:taxlink at line 68: Parameter "ver" is not used by this template.)
- petty whin (Lua error in Module:taxlink at line 68: Parameter "ver" is not used by this template.)
- whin bruiser
- whin sparrow (Prunella modularis)
- whin thrush (Turdus iliacus)
Further reading
Etymology 2
Noun
whin
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “whin”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ɪn
- English terms with homophones
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old Norse
- English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English terms inherited from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- Requests for quotations/Gray
- English nouns with unknown or uncertain plurals
- en:Genisteae tribe plants