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Wan vs Wean - What's the difference?

wan | wean |

As a verb 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 a noun wean is

(scotland) a small child.

wan

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl), from (etyl) .

Adjective

(wanner)
  • Pale, sickly-looking.
  • * Spenser
    • Sad to view, his visage pale and wan .
  • * Longfellow
    • the wan moon overhead
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1921 , year_published=2012 , edition=HTML , editor= , author=Edgar Rice Burrows , title=The Efficiency Expert , chapter= citation , genre= , publisher=The Gutenberg Project , isbn= , page= , passage=She looked wan and worried, ... }}
  • Dim, faint.
  • * {{quote-book, passage=’twas so far away, that evil day when I prayed to the Prince of Gloom / For the savage strength and the sullen length of life to work his doom. / Nor sign nor word had I seen or heard, and it happed so long ago; / My youth was gone and my memory wan , and I willed it even so.
    • , title=(Ballads of a Cheechako) , chapter=(The Ballad of One-Eyed Mike) , author=Robert W. Service , year=1909}}
  • Bland, uninterested.
    • A wan expression

    Noun

    (-)
  • The quality of being wan; wanness.
  • * Tennyson
    • Tinged with wan from lack of sleep.

    Etymology 2

    Inflected forms.

    Verb

    (head)
  • (obsolete) (win)

    • Anagrams

    * ----

    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

    * * * ----