Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To complain or protest, especially in an annoying or persistent manner.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To whine.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb Scot. To whine.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun UK, New Zealand A
cry . - noun UK, New Zealand A complaint.
- verb UK, New Zealand To
complain , especially in anannoying orpersistent manner. - verb UK, New Zealand To whine.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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UPDATE: Thank you to one of my readers for edited Wikipedia to get rid of the whinge from the above-mentioned page!
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The police complaint should be thus: You phone a number where a monotone voice tells you what button to push for your particular whinge from a list. 1 caller in 5 will be randomly cut off and have to call back.
I Could Want You, But I Don’t. « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2007
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But I want lunch and after doing the same trip yesterday, my back hurts and I'm exhausted so I'm in whinge mode.
Procrastination rules! reynardo 2001
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Then, too, the whinge from the more hawk-like Liberals is that “we left you guys a whopping surplus and you’ve handed it out all over the map, so now you get to flirt with the danger of not breaking even”.
The Reason This Budget Sucks « Unambiguously Ambidextrous 2008
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Then, too, the whinge from the more hawk-like Liberals is that “we left you guys a whopping surplus and you’ve handed it out all over the map, so now you get to flirt with the danger of not breaking even”.
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Then, too, the whinge from the more hawk-like Liberals is that “we left you guys a whopping surplus and you’ve handed it out all over the map, so now you get to flirt with the danger of not breaking even”.
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I registered my academia 101 blog at PhD weblogs because Tom told me about it. my other one, though, isn't exactly a secret cos it's linked from my online CV (which is linked to the Asian Australian Studies page). you've probably read my whingey, half-arsed posts about feeling constricted in what I can say or post about. it's v. annoying (me having a whinge, that is).
Nothing Much Kirsty 2006
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That's not a "whinge" its a professional opinion of an Ops sysadmin that maintains full scale enterprise scale web servers and J2EE application servers.
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Americans do not, by and large, even know the term "whinge".
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Now that winter has finally arrived and everyone has upped their weather complaint mode from "whinge" to "whine," it's time to put things in perspective.
Toronto Sun 2009
pamelad commented on the word whinge
moan and whine
February 17, 2007
sarra commented on the word whinge
not a hybrid word! Shares Old English and Old Norse roots with whine, that's all.
March 31, 2008
rolig commented on the word whinge
I just came across this word in a comment to an article on the Guardian website about anti-Chinese protests. The commenter, who goes by the cool name TheEarlofSuave, observes: "If you want to be a leader in the world, then you have to take criticism without whinging."
Like sionnach, I too thought this was a portmanteau word. I'm putting it on my fibrous words list because it so vividly evokes that particular combination of self-pity, hurt, defensiveness, and tediousness charisteristic of whingers.
August 5, 2008
qroqqa commented on the word whinge
From an Old English hwinsian, which is the base of 'whine' with an -s- suffix (also seen in 'cleanse' and 'bless'). The change to -g- /dʒ/ is a Scottish and Northern development in Middle English.
Going by the OED quotations, it remained a Scottish, Irish, and Northern variant into the twentieth century, and was taken back into Southern English via the familiar Australian use.
August 5, 2008
rolig commented on the word whinge
thanks, qroqqa, for the explanation. I am going to do my best to see that the word makes it to the other branches of English (e.g. American, Euro-English).
August 5, 2008
bilby commented on the word whinge
I didn't realise Americans weren't familiar with this.
August 5, 2008
reesetee commented on the word whinge
Some Americans are. I've heard and read it here.
August 5, 2008
chained_bear commented on the word whinge
I learned it in Australia. It's still weird to me, and Americans will wonder what you're saying unless you leave out the G and say "whine."
August 5, 2008
yarb commented on the word whinge
I'm forever instructing my kids to quit whinging, to the bemusement of most bystanders.
August 5, 2008
oroboros commented on the word whinge
Garrison Keillor touted it as a 'wonderful word' at the end of an early monologue listing complaint words on his Prairie Home Companion show this morning on NPR.
May 23, 2016