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Waive vs Wean - What's the difference?

waive | wean |

As verbs the difference between waive and wean

is that waive is (obsolete) to outlaw (someone) or waive can be (obsolete) to move from side to side; to sway while wean is to cease giving milk to an offspring; to accustom and reconcile (a child or young animal) to a want or deprivation of mother's milk; to take from the breast or udder.

As nouns the difference between waive and wean

is that waive is (obsolete|legal) a woman put out of the protection of the law; an outlawed woman or waive can be while wean is (scotland) a small child.

waive

English

Etymology 1

(etyl) weyven, from (etyl) .

Verb

(waiv)
  • (obsolete) To outlaw (someone).
  • (obsolete) To abandon, give up (someone or something).
  • *
  • (legal) To relinquish (a right etc.); to give up claim to; to forego.
    • If you waive the right to be silent, anything you say can be used against you in a court of law.
  • *
  • To put aside, avoid.
  • *
    • Derived terms
    * waivable
    Related terms
    * waiver * waif

    Etymology 2

    (etyl) weyven, from (etyl) .

    Verb

    (waiv)
  • (obsolete) To move from side to side; to sway.
  • (obsolete) To stray, wander.
  • * c. 1390 , (Geoffrey Chaucer), "The Merchant's Tale", Canterbury Tales :
    • ye been so ful of sapience / That yow ne liketh, for youre heighe prudence, / To weyven fro the word of Salomon.

    Etymology 3

    From (etyl) waive, probably as the past participle of (weyver), as Etymology 1, above.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete, legal) A woman put out of the protection of the law; an outlawed woman.
  • (obsolete) A waif; a castaway.
    • (John Donne)

    Etymology 4

    Variant forms.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • * 1624 , (John Donne), Devotions upon Emergent Occasions :
    • I know, O Lord, the ordinary discomfort that accompanies that phrase, that the house is visited, and that thy works, and thy tokens are upon the patient; but what a wretched, and disconsolate hermitage is that house, which is not visited by thee, and what a waive and stray is that man, that hath not thy marks upon him?

    wean

    English

    Etymology 1

    (etyl) wenian.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To cease giving milk to an offspring; to accustom and reconcile (a child or young animal) to a want or deprivation of mother's milk; to take from the breast or udder.
    • The cow has weaned her calf.
  • * Bible, Genesis xxi. 8
    • Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned .
  • To cause to quit something to which one is addicted or habituated.
    • He managed to wean himself off heroin.
  • * Jonathan Swift
    • The troubles of age were intended to wean us gradually from our fondness of life.
  • To cease to depend on the mother for nourishment.
    • The kittens are finally weaning .
  • To cease to depend.
    • She is weaning from her addiction to tobacco.

    Etymology 2

    .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (Scotland) A small child.
  • * 2008 , (James Kelman), Kieron Smith, Boy , Penguin 2009, p. 92:
    • Pigs, cows and sheep and wee ducks, that was what he bought and it was just for weans and wee lasses. I said it to my maw.
    Oh it is not weans' it is children. Oh Kieron, it is children and girls, do not say ' weans and lasses.
  • * Elizabeth Browning
    • I, being but a yearling wean .

    Anagrams

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