Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A throwing implement used by the aborigines of Victoria, Australia. It consists of a small piece of hard wood about an inch in diameter shaped like a double cone fastened to a slender, flexible rod about two feet long, and usually made in one piece. It is used in a game, the object being to throw it to the greatest possible distance. The total weight is less than two ounces.
  • noun Same as weet.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A throwing toy, or implement, of the Australian aborigines, consisting of a cigar-shaped stick fastened at one end to a flexible twig. It weighs in all about two ounces, and is about two feet long.
  • noun Prov. Eng., Prov. Eng. The common European sandpiper.
  • noun Prov. Eng. The chaffinch.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun UK, dialect The common European sandpiper.
  • noun UK, dialect The chaffinch.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

So called from its piping cry when disturbed.

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Examples

  • Following a murmuring "weet-weet" this morning, I came upon a brace of plovers.

    Janey Canuck in the West Emily Ferguson 1910

  • Before I saw Australia I had never heard of the "weet-weet" at all.

    Following the Equator Mark Twain 1872

  • He told me some wonderful things -- some almost incredible things -- which he had seen the blacks do with the boomerang and the weet-weet.

    Following the Equator Mark Twain 1872

  • He told me some wonderful things -- some almost incredible things -- which he had seen the blacks do with the boomerang and the weet-weet.

    Following the Equator, Part 2 Mark Twain 1872

  • The water is smooth, and the stone has a good chance; so a strong man may make it travel fifty or seventy-five yards; but the weet-weet has no such good chance, for it strikes sand, grass, and earth in its course.

    Following the Equator Mark Twain 1872

  • The water is smooth, and the stone has a good chance; so a strong man may make it travel fifty or seventy-five yards; but the weet-weet has no such good chance, for it strikes sand, grass, and earth in its course.

    Following the Equator, Part 3 Mark Twain 1872

  • Before I saw Australia I had never heard of the "weet-weet" at all.

    Following the Equator, Part 3 Mark Twain 1872

  • The Old Settler said that he had seen distances made by the weet-weet, in the early days, which almost convinced him that it was as extraordinary an instrument as the boomerang.

    Following the Equator Mark Twain 1872

  • The Old Settler said that he had seen distances made by the weet-weet, in the early days, which almost convinced him that it was as extraordinary an instrument as the boomerang.

    Following the Equator, Part 3 Mark Twain 1872

  • He instanced their invention of the boomerang and the "weet-weet" as evidences of their brightness; and as another evidence of it he said he had never seen

    Following the Equator Mark Twain 1872

Comments

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  • "The distance to which the weet-weet or kangaroo-rat* can be thrown is truly astonishing."

    *substitute kangaroo-rat with bilby.

    May 8, 2016

  • Go stick a weet-weet up your coin shute, vendingmeachine.

    May 8, 2016