ETYMOLOGY
from whey + blooded
EXAMPLE
“…Beantosser
Here here, a pox o’ these full mouth’d Fox hounds.
Hectorio
They hunt devilish hard, I’me affrai’d they’l earth us.
Stephania
Give Hectorio a dram of the Bottle, the Whey-Blooded Rogue looks as if his heart were melted into his Breeches…”
From: The Mock-Tempest, or, The Enchanted Castle
By Thomas Duffett, 1675
ETYMOLOGY
from weal (well-being, Old English wela [wealth], in late Old English also welfare, well-being), + –some
EXAMPLE
“…I preisede more the deade than the liuende; and I demede hym welsumere than either, that ȝit is not born …”
From: The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments, with the Apocryphal books
(Wycliffite, early version), a1382
Edited by Josiah Forshall and Frederic Madden. 1850
ETYMOLOGY
from wily (crafty, cunning, sly) + pie (a cunning, sly, or wily person, obs.)
EXAMPLE
“…So fiercely he fighteth, his mind is so fell,
That he driveth them down with dints on their day-watch;
He bruiseth their brainpans and maketh them to swell,
Their brows all to-broken, such claps they catch;
Whose jealousy malicious maketh them to leap the hatch;
By their cognizance knowing how they serve a wily pie
Ask all your neighbours whether that I lie…”
From: Divers Ballads and Ditties Solacious
The Ancient Acquaintance, Madam, Between us Twain
John Skelton, (1460? – 1529)
ETYMOLOGY
from white + nose
EXAMPLE
“…We now hoisted sail and stood off the land. The wind, together with the sea, was fast rising, many a ‘white nose‘ chequering the blueness of the more open water…”
From: A Naturalist’s Ramble to The Orcades
By A. W. Crichton, 1866
ETYMOLOGY
from wight (strong and courageous, esp. in warfare) + -ling (with the sense a person belonging to or concerned with)
EXAMPLE
“…Now, wiþ outen more dueling,
Galathin com swiþe flinge
Wiþ þre þousand wiȝtling
& smot oȝain þat heþen king…”
From: Arthour and Merlin;
an anonymous Middle English verse romance giving an account of the reigns of Vortigern and Uther Pendragon and the early years of King Arthur’s reign, c1330
ETYMOLOGY
from whizz (to move swiftly or with such a sound) + -er
EXAMPLE
“…The washerwoman finds her occupation almost gone through the introduction of machinery. The larger part of the city of Troy is devoted to the manufacture of engines, whizzers, starchers, and other machines of the steam laundry. The most interesting machine is the whizzer, which dries clothes in 1,000 revolutions a minute…”
From: The Pall Mall Budget, July 1887
Volume 35
ETYMOLOGY
Old English wrixlian, -an (to alter, change, exchange, etc.),
also ᵹewrixlian, altered form of ᵹewixlian, = Old Frisian wixlia, Old Saxon wehsalon, Old High German wehsalon (German wechseln)
EXAMPLE (for vb. 2)
“…Kynges, & knightes, & other kyde Dukes,
That the charge, & the chaunse hase of þis choise wer,
Thurgh oure might & oure monhod maintene to gedur!
What whylenes, or wanspede, wryxles our mynd?
Þat for meuyng of a man,—Menelay the kyng,—
And the wille of a woman, as ye weton all,
Oure londes haue leuyt, & oure lefe godys…”
From: Destruction of Troy,
The gest hystoriale of the destruction of Troy,
An alliterative romance translated from Guido de Colonna’s Hystoria Troiana
ETYMOLOGY
of uncertain origin
From the Oxford English Dictionary:
The form appears to suggest a French origin (compare pigeon n.), but French forms are first attested significantly later than the English word: compare †vigeon kind of West Indian duck (1667), †vingeon kind of duck observed in Madagascar (1690), kind of West Indian duck (1767 or earlier), Eurasian wigeon (Buffon 1783, also as †gingeon), American wigeon (J. Latham 1785), and it is even possible that the French word was borrowed < English.
PRONUNCIATION
WIJ-uhn
EXAMPLE (for n. 2)
“…Such as you shall like too: what say you to this young Gent. He is the widgen that wee must feed vpon…”
From: The Miseries of Inforst Mariage
By George Wilkins, 1607
ETYMOLOGY
from writing (vbl. n.) + -er
EXAMPLE
“…and that of the shape of the x from a form like theMS. & to the modern one, which occurs towards the end of the volume, may help some future and more learned writinger to settle the date more closely than I can…”
From: Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript
By F. J. Furnivall (Forewords)
J.W. Hales, 1867
ETYMOLOGY
from waker (unsleeping, watchful, vigilant obs.) + -ly
EXAMPLE
“…Sothely he, as a good herde, was ful wakkerly and besy vppon the kepynge of that litell flok, his byloued disciples…”
From: The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ;
an adaptation/translation of Pseudo-Bonaventure’s Meditations on the Life of Christ into English
By Nicholas Love, c1400
Lexicophilia 