whinny
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English whynyen, whinien, akin to Middle English whinen (“to whine”).
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
whinny (plural whinnies)
- A gentle neigh.
- 1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Enid”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC, pages 85–86:
- And moving out they found the stately horse, / Who now no more a vassal to the thief, / But free to stretch his limbs in lawful fight, / Neigh'd with all gladness as they came, and stoop'd / With a low whinny toward the pair: […]
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Verb edit
whinny (third-person singular simple present whinnies, present participle whinnying, simple past and past participle whinnied)
- (transitive, intransitive, of a horse) To make a gentle neigh.
- 1904 May, Winston Churchill, The Crossing, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, book I (The Borderland), page 240:
- Cattle lowed here and there, and horses whinnied to be fed.
- 1914, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter XIII, in The Mucker[1], All-Story Cavalier Weekly:
- A pony whinnied a short distance from the hut.
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