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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

whey.

The liquid remaining after milk has been curdled and strained in the process of making cheese.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/hweɪ//weɪ/
  1. The liquid remaining after milk has been curdled and strained in the process of making cheese.

    uncountable · usually
Where this word comes from

From Middle English whey, wheye, whei, from Old English hwǣġ, hwæiġ, hwæġ, hweġ (“whey”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwaij (“whey”) (cognate with Saterland Frisian Waai, Woaie, West Frisian waai, Dutch wei, Low German Wei, German Low German Wei), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *kʷey- (“to pile up, build”) (compare Old Church Slavonic чинъ (činŭ, “order”), Ancient Greek ποιέω (poiéō, “to pile up, make”), Sanskrit कय (káya, “every one”)).

intj/hweɪ//weɪ/
  1. A shout for attention

    UK · dated
  2. A shout of enthusiasm or delight

    UK
  3. Shouted when someone drops a glass or other crockery, especially in a pub.

    UK
Where this word comes from

Onomatopoeic, variation on wahey.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.