ween
Pronunciation
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003
Pronunciation
- IPA: /wiːn/
ween (plural weens)
- (obsolete) Doubt; conjecture.
ween (weens, present participle weening; past weened, past participle weened)
- (archaic) To suppose, imagine; to think, believe.
- 1481, Author unknown (pseudonym Sir John Mandeville), The travels of Sir John Mandeville:
- And when they will fight they will shock them together in a plump; that if there be 20000 men, men shall not ween that there be scant 10000.
- 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/MaloryWks2/1:6.8?rgn=div2;view=fulltext chapter viij], in Le Morte Darthur, book IV:
- And ryght as Arthur was on horsbak / ther cam a damoisel from Morgan le fey and broughte vnto syr Arthur a swerd lyke vnto Excalibur / […] / and sayd vnto Arthur Morgan le fey sendeth here your swerd for grete loue / and he thanked her / & wende it had ben so / but she was fals / for the swerd and the scaubard was counterfeet & brutyll and fals
- 1526, William Tyndale, trans. Bible, Acts of the Apostles VIII:
- Then sayde Peter unto hym: Perissh thou and thy money togedder. For thou wenest that the gyfte of god maye be obteyned with money?
- 1562, John Heywood, The proverbs, epigrams, and miscellanies of John Heywood:
- Wise men in old time would ween themselves fools; Fools now in new time will ween themselves wise.
- 1677, Thomas Mall, A cloud of witnesses:
- … for I ween he will no longer suffer him to abide among the adulterous and wicked Generation of this World.
- 1793, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Christabel:
- But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
- Shall wholly do away, I ween,
- The marks of that which once hath been.
- 1878, W.S. Gilbert, H.M.S. Pinafore ('When I was a lad'):
- And that junior partnership, I ween, Was the only ship that I ever had seen.
- 1884, W.S. Gilbert, Princess Ida:
- Yet humble second shall be first, I ween
- 1924, Herman Melville, Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co., Chapter 18,
- Little ween the snug card-players in the cabin of the responsibilities of the sleepless man on the bridge.
- 1974, Stanisław Lem, trans. Michael Kandel, The Cyberiad:
- Klapaucius too, I ween,
Will turn the deepest green
To hear such flawless verse from Trurl’s machine.
- Klapaucius too, I ween,
- 1481, Author unknown (pseudonym Sir John Mandeville), The travels of Sir John Mandeville:
- (dated) To expect, hope or wish.
ween (weens, present participle weening; past and past participle weened)
- (Northern England, Scotland, rare) To weep or cry.
- The boy's mother weened day and night.
- (obsolete) To lament.
- Misspelling of wean
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003