Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To complain or protest, especially in an annoying or persistent manner.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To whine.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb Scot. To whine.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun UK, New Zealand A cry.
  • noun UK, New Zealand A complaint.
  • verb UK, New Zealand To complain, especially in an annoying or persistent manner.
  • verb UK, New Zealand To whine.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Dialectal alteration of Middle English whinsen, from Old English hwinsian.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English whinsen, from Old English hwinsian ("to whine"), from Proto-Germanic *hwinisōnan (“to whine”), from Proto-Germanic *hwīnanan (“to whizz, rush, swoosh, whine, hiss”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱwey- (“to hiss, whistle, whisper”). Cognate with German winseln ("to whine, whimper").

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Examples

  • UPDATE: Thank you to one of my readers for edited Wikipedia to get rid of the whinge from the above-mentioned page!

    Wikipedia very highly trusted in Japan 2008

  • The police complaint should be thus: You phone a number where a monotone voice tells you what button to push for your particular whinge from a list. 1 caller in 5 will be randomly cut off and have to call back.

    I Could Want You, But I Don’t. « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2007

  • But I want lunch and after doing the same trip yesterday, my back hurts and I'm exhausted so I'm in whinge mode.

    Procrastination rules! reynardo 2001

  • Then, too, the whinge from the more hawk-like Liberals is that “we left you guys a whopping surplus and you’ve handed it out all over the map, so now you get to flirt with the danger of not breaking even”.

    The Reason This Budget Sucks « Unambiguously Ambidextrous 2008

  • Then, too, the whinge from the more hawk-like Liberals is that “we left you guys a whopping surplus and you’ve handed it out all over the map, so now you get to flirt with the danger of not breaking even”.

    2008 February 27 « Unambiguously Ambidextrous 2008

  • Then, too, the whinge from the more hawk-like Liberals is that “we left you guys a whopping surplus and you’ve handed it out all over the map, so now you get to flirt with the danger of not breaking even”.

    2008 February « Unambiguously Ambidextrous 2008

  • I registered my academia 101 blog at PhD weblogs because Tom told me about it. my other one, though, isn't exactly a secret cos it's linked from my online CV (which is linked to the Asian Australian Studies page). you've probably read my whingey, half-arsed posts about feeling constricted in what I can say or post about. it's v. annoying (me having a whinge, that is).

    Nothing Much Kirsty 2006

  • That's not a "whinge" its a professional opinion of an Ops sysadmin that maintains full scale enterprise scale web servers and J2EE application servers.

    £100K but where was the QA? 2008

  • Americans do not, by and large, even know the term "whinge".

    God I hope Murdoch buys the Journal 2007

  • Now that winter has finally arrived and everyone has upped their weather complaint mode from "whinge" to "whine," it's time to put things in perspective.

    Toronto Sun 2009

Comments

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  • moan and whine

    February 17, 2007

  • not a hybrid word! Shares Old English and Old Norse roots with whine, that's all.

    March 31, 2008

  • I just came across this word in a comment to an article on the Guardian website about anti-Chinese protests. The commenter, who goes by the cool name TheEarlofSuave, observes: "If you want to be a leader in the world, then you have to take criticism without whinging."

    Like sionnach, I too thought this was a portmanteau word. I'm putting it on my fibrous words list because it so vividly evokes that particular combination of self-pity, hurt, defensiveness, and tediousness charisteristic of whingers.

    August 5, 2008

  • From an Old English hwinsian, which is the base of 'whine' with an -s- suffix (also seen in 'cleanse' and 'bless'). The change to -g- /dʒ/ is a Scottish and Northern development in Middle English.

    Going by the OED quotations, it remained a Scottish, Irish, and Northern variant into the twentieth century, and was taken back into Southern English via the familiar Australian use.

    August 5, 2008

  • thanks, qroqqa, for the explanation. I am going to do my best to see that the word makes it to the other branches of English (e.g. American, Euro-English).

    August 5, 2008

  • I didn't realise Americans weren't familiar with this.

    August 5, 2008

  • Some Americans are. I've heard and read it here.

    August 5, 2008

  • I learned it in Australia. It's still weird to me, and Americans will wonder what you're saying unless you leave out the G and say "whine."

    August 5, 2008

  • I'm forever instructing my kids to quit whinging, to the bemusement of most bystanders.

    August 5, 2008

  • Garrison Keillor touted it as a 'wonderful word' at the end of an early monologue listing complaint words on his Prairie Home Companion show this morning on NPR.

    May 23, 2016