whete

Middle English

FWOTD – 24 January 2019

Alternative forms

Etymology

Inherited from Old English hwǣte, hwēte.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈhwɛːt(ə)/
  • (dialectal) IPA(key): /ˈwɛːt(ə)/, /ˈxwɛːt(ə)/

Noun

whete (uncountable)

  1. Wheat (plant of the genus Triticum).
  2. The grain resulting from wheat; corn.
    • c. 1375, “Book V”, in Iohne Barbour, De geſtis bellis et uirtutibus domini Roberti de Brwyß [] (The Brus, Advocates MS. 19.2.2), Ouchtirmunſye: Iohannes Ramſay, published 1489, folio 17, verso, lines 408-410; republished at Edinburgh: National Library of Scotland, c. 2010:
      All þe wictalis owtane ſalt / Als quheyt and flour ⁊ meill ⁊ malt / In þe wyne sellar geꝛt he bꝛyng []
      All the food except for salt, / like wheat, flour, meal, and malt, / he went to put in the wine-cellar []
    • c. 1382–1395, John Wycliffe [et al.], edited by Josiah Forshall and Frederic Madden, The Holy Bible, [], volume I, Oxford: At the University Press, published 1850, →OCLC, Genesis XLII:35, page 172, column 1:
      Thes thingis seid, whanne eche heelden out whete, thei founden in the mouth of the sackis boundun moneys.
      These things said, when each poured out their corn, they found in the mouth of the sacks bound [i.e., bundled-up] money.
  3. The better or more valuable part of something.

Derived terms

Descendants

  • English: wheat
  • Middle Scots: quhete[1]
  • Yola: whet

References

  1. quhete” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries.
  2. white” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries.
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.