whine.
A long-drawn, high-pitched complaining cry or sound.
Meaning & usage
A long-drawn, high-pitched complaining cry or sound.
A peevish or self-pitying complaint or criticism.
I need to have a quick whine about my boss before we start talking about the holiday.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English whynen, hwinen, whinen, from Old English hwīnan (“to rush, to whizz, to squeal, to whine”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwīnan, from Proto-Germanic *hwīnaną, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱwey- (“to hiss, whistle, whisper”). Cognate with Old Norse hvína, whence Icelandic hvína, Norwegian Nynorsk kvina, Swedish vina, and Danish hvine. Despite the strong similarity in sound and meaning, not related with German weinen, Dutch wenen, from Proto-Germanic *wainōną (for which see dialectal English ween (“to weep, lament”)).
To utter a high-pitched cry.
To make a sound resembling such a cry.
The jet engines whined at take off.
To complain or protest with a whine (compare whinge) or as if with a whine, i.e. in a peevish or self-pitying way.
To move with a whining sound.
The jet whined into the air.
The wind whined and moaned through the trees.
To utter with the sound of a whine.
The child whined all his complaints.
Kelly Queen was whining that the boss made him put on his tie.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English whynen, hwinen, whinen, from Old English hwīnan (“to rush, to whizz, to squeal, to whine”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwīnan, from Proto-Germanic *hwīnaną, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱwey- (“to hiss, whistle, whisper”). Cognate with Old Norse hvína, whence Icelandic hvína, Norwegian Nynorsk kvina, Swedish vina, and Danish hvine. Despite the strong similarity in sound and meaning, not related with German weinen, Dutch wenen, from Proto-Germanic *wainōną (for which see dialectal English ween (“to weep, lament”)).
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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.