Wean vs Taper - What's the difference?
wean | taper |
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.
* Bible, Genesis xxi. 8
To cause to quit something to which one is addicted or habituated.
* Jonathan Swift
To cease to depend on the mother for nourishment.
To cease to depend.
(Scotland) A small child.
* 2008 , (James Kelman), Kieron Smith, Boy , Penguin 2009, p. 92:
* Elizabeth Browning
A slender wax candle; a small lighted wax candle; hence, a small light.
* ~1603 , William Shakespeare, ''Othello, Act I, scene I, line 157:
* 1913 ,
A tapering form; gradual diminution of thickness and/or cross section in an elongated object
A thin stick used for lighting candles, either a wax-coated wick or a slow-burning wooden rod.
To make thinner or narrower at one end.
* 1851 ,
To diminish gradually.
In transitive terms the difference between wean and taper
is that wean is to cause to quit something to which one is addicted or habituated while taper is to make thinner or narrower at one end.In intransitive terms the difference between wean and taper
is that wean is to cease to depend while taper is to diminish gradually.wean
English
Etymology 1
(etyl) wenian.Verb
(en verb)- The cow has weaned her calf.
- Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned .
- He managed to wean himself off heroin.
- The troubles of age were intended to wean us gradually from our fondness of life.
- The kittens are finally weaning .
- She is weaning from her addiction to tobacco.
Etymology 2
.Noun
(en noun)- 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.
- I, being but a yearling wean .
Anagrams
* * * ----taper
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) taper, from (etyl) .Noun
(en noun)- strike on the tinder, ho!/ Give me a taper .
- Love used to carry a bow, you know,
- But now he carries a taper ;
- It is either a length of wax aglow,
- Or a twist of lighted paper.
- the taper of a spire.
- The legs of the table had a slight taper to them.
Derived terms
* taperwiseVerb
(en verb)- Though true cylinders without — within, the villanous green goggling glasses deceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating bottom.
