Search the Dictionary

Gorse; furze. See Furze. Through the whins, and by the cairn. Burns.

The English bilberry; -- so called because it grows on moors among the whins, or furze. Dr. Prior.

A small warbler (Pratincola rubetra) common in Europe; -- called also whinchacker, whincheck, whin-clocharet.

intive, nasal tone; hence, to complain or to beg in a mean, unmanly way; to moan basely. "Whining plovers." Spenser. The hounds were . . . staying their coming, but with a whining accent, craving liberty. Sir P. Sidney. Dost thou come here to whine Shak.

One who, or that which, whines.

To whine. [Scot.] Burns.

a weapon. [Scot. & Prov. Eng.] The chief acknowledged that he had corrected her with his whinger. Sir W. Scott.

In a whining manner; in a tone of mean complaint.

To whinny. [Colloq.]

The ordinary cry or call of a horse; a neigh. "The stately horse . . . stooped with a low whinny." Tennyson.

The small pig of a litter. [Local, U. S.]

stratified rocks which resist the point of the pick. -- for example, to masses of chert. Whin-dikes, and whin-sills, are names sometimes given to veins or beds of basalt.

A sword, or hanger. [Obs.]

The needle furze. See under Needle.

To weaken; to enfeeble; to reduce; as, an old appalled wight. [Obs.] Chaucer. Whine, of its own nature, will not congeal and freeze, only it will lose the strength, and become appalled in extremity of cold. Holland.

To speak in a whining voice, or an affected, sinsong tone.

Caontaining cant or affectation; whining; singing. [R.]

One who cants or whines; a beggar.

Speaking in a whining tone of voice; using technical or religious terms affectedly; affectedly pious; as, a canting rogue; a canting tone. - Cant"ing*ly, adv. -- Cant"ing*ness, n. Canting arms, Canting heraldry (Her.), bearings in the nature of a rebus alluding to the name of the bearer. Thus, the Castletons bear thre…

Europe the name is given to several birds of the family Saxicolidæ, as the stonechat, and whinchat. Bush chat. (Zoöl.) See under Bush.