September 9, 1997

whinge

I've seen this word "whinge" several times in the recent past but I don't find it in my dictionary. Folks are swearing it's a legit word--any help?

If you think that British and Australian English are legit, then yes, whinge is a legit word. In America, however, it's very rarely encountered, which is why it's omitted from most American dictionaries; I had never heard the word before I went to England.

Whinge means pretty much 'to whine', in the sense of 'to complain in a peevish manner'. It's quite frequent in British and related varieties of English (though not in Canadian English). A few examples from this century: "Forgive this contemptible sort of whinging. I am so lonely and miserable I cant [sic] help it" (John Millerton Synge); "If that girl didn't stop her wingeing [sic], the neighbours would be banging on the wall" (Beryl Bainbridge).

The word whinge is of Germanic origin; its ultimate root is the same as the source of whine. Whinge is a northern form, and in early use was a dialectal form found in Scottish and Northern English writers.

Whinge is a continuation of the Old English verb hwinsian; though whinge is not found in Middle English, this is presumably due to a gap in the evidence.