whig

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“
xii. Mr. Green, however, thought the word whig might be the same as our whey_, implying a taunt against the "sour-milk faces" of the fanatical Ayrshiremen.--"History of the English People," iii.

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Definitions (21)

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  1. Sour whey. Brockett. [Prov. Eng. and Scotch.] With green cheese, clouted cream, with flawns and custard stor'd, Whig, cyder, and with whey, I domineer a lord. Drayton, Muses' Elysium, vi. Drinke Whig and sowre Milke, whilest I rince my Throat With Burdeaux and Canarie. Heywood, English Traveller (ed. Pearson), i. 2.
  2. Buttermilk. Halliwell. [Provincial English]
  3. To move at an easy and steady pace; jog. [Scots.] The Solemn League and Covenant Came whigging up the hills, man. Battle of Killiecrankie (Child's Ballads, VII. 155).
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Examples (50)

  • He was a whig, with all the virulence and malevolence of his party; yet difference of opinion did not keep us apart. —  Life of Johnson
  • A tory , then, was an adherent of the crown; a whig was an opposer of the government. —  The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, by Abraham Tomlinson
  • Distinguished by secret marks the whig, the timid whig, the tory, the horse-thief, and those concerned in, or suspected of, giving information to the enemy. —  Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Volume 1.
  • Abbreviated to "whig," it speedily became, and has in England and Scotland ever since remained, a name for the opponents of royal power. —  History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6)
  • He was a reputed whig, an easy and kind-tempered man with a sense of scholarship, but no power of discipline, and no energy of desire to impress himself upon his pupils. —  The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) 1809-1859
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Cf. Scots whiggle, variant of wiggle: see wiggle.
  2. Formerly also whigg; prob. short for whiggamore, q. v.
 

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