whist

EnglishEdit

PronunciationEdit

enPR: wĭst, IPA^(key): /wɪst/ or enPR: hwĭst, IPA^(key): /ʍɪst/ (in Scottish English and some English accents)
Audio (RP) (file)
Rhymes: -ɪst
Homophone: wist (in accents with the wine-whine merger)

Etymology 1Edit

Alteration of whisk, perhaps so called from the notion of “whisking” up cards after each trick. Altered perhaps on assumption that the word was an interjection invoking silence, by influence of whist (“silent”).^[1]

NounEdit

whist (countable and uncountable, plural whists)

Any of several four-player card games, similar to bridge.
A session of playing this card game.

Derived termsEdit

TranslationsEdit

card game

Armenian: վիստ (hy) (vist)
Bulgarian: вист m (vist)
Czech: whist m
Danish: whist c
Dutch: wiezen (nl) n
Finnish: visti (fi), tuppi (fi)
French: whist (fr) m
German: Whist (de) n
Greek: ουίστ (el) n (ouíst)
Icelandic: vist f
Ido: wisto (io)
Macedonian: ви́ст m (víst)
Polish: wist (pl) m
Russian: вист (ru) (vist)

Etymology 2Edit

From Middle English whist (“silent”), possibly onomatopoeic.

InterjectionEdit

whist

Alternative spelling of whisht. Silence!, quiet!, hush!, shhh!, shush!
- 1860, anonymous, Heroes and Hunters of the West‎^[1], HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2008:
  … for scarcely had they descended one hundred feet, when a low “whist” from the girl, warned them of present danger.

VerbEdit

whist (third-person singular simple present whists, present participle whisting, simple past and past participle whisted)

(transitive, rare) To hush, shush, or whisht; to still.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
  o was the Titaness put downe and whist
(intransitive, rare) To become silent.
- 1557 July 1, Virgil, “The Fowrth Boke of Virgiles Aenæis”, in Henry [Howard, Earl] of Surrey, transl.; William Bolland, editor, Certain Bokes of Virgiles Aenaeis, Turned into English Meter ([Roxburghe Club Publications; I]), London: […] A[braham] J[ohn] Valpy, […], published 1814, →OCLC:
  The fields whist, beasts, and fowls of divers bue

AdjectiveEdit

whist (comparative more whist, superlative most whist)

(rare) Silent, hushed.
- 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:
  Come unto these yellow sands, / And then take hands: / Courtsied when you have and kiss'd / The wild waves whist, / Foot it featly here and there; / And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear. […]