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Whin vs Whing - What's the difference?

whin | whing |

As nouns the difference between whin and whing

is that whin is gorse; furze while whing is a high-pitched ringing sound or whing can be .

As a verb whing is

to move with great force or speed.

whin

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • Gorse; furze.
  • * 1790 , '', 1828, Thomas Park (editor), ''Works of the British Poets , Volume XX: The Poems of Robert Burns, page 65,
    • By this time he was cross the ford, / Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor'd; / And past the birks and meikle stane, / Whare drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane; / And through the whins , and by the cairn, / Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn; / And near the thorn, aboon the well, / Whare Mungo's mither hang'd hersel.
  • * 1932 , (Lewis Grassic Gibbon), , 1995, Canongate Books, page 38,
    • And sometimes they clambered down […] and saw the whin bushes climb black the white hills beside them and far and away the blink of lights across the moors where folk lay happed and warm.
  • The plant woad-waxen.
    • (Gray)
  • Whinstone.

    • Derived terms

    * moor whin * petty whin * whin bruiser * whin sparrow * whin thrush (Webster 1913)

    whing

    English

    Etymology 1

    Onomatopoeic.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A high-pitched ringing sound
  • * 1855: Charles Kingsley, Westward Ho! The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh
    • " Whing', ' whing ," went the Spaniard's shot, like so many humming-tops, through the rigging far above their heads. . .

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To move with great force or speed

    • Etymology 2

    See .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • * 1578: Henry Lyte (tr.), A Niewe herball or historie of plantes
    • The fruite is long, flat, and thinne, almost lyke to a feather of a small birde, or lyke the whing of a grashopper.
  • * 1791: letter from Colonel Darke to George Washington, quoted in Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West , vol. 4 (1896)
    • we incamped in two Lines about 60 yards apart the Right whing in frunt Commanded by General Butler, the Left in the Rear which I commanded
  • * 1869: James Jennings, The Dialect of the West of England, particularly Somersetshire, with a glossary of words now in use there; also with poems and other pieces exemplifying the dialect
    • When tha dumbledores hummin, craup out o’ tha cobwâll
  • *:: An’ shakin ther whings , thâ vleed vooäth an’ awâ.

    • References

    * OED 2nd edition 1989