Whining

How to spell whining

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce whining

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does whining mean?

1. verbComplaining in a feeble, drawn-out, and irritating way.
2. adjectiveMaking a long, high-pitched sound, as a machine, engine, or animal.

Whining in a sentence

• verb

  The manager was tired of his constant whining about the new schedule.

• adjective

  The whining noise from the engine grew louder as the car climbed the hill.

• verb

  Instead of whining about the bill, she called the company to dispute it.

• adjective

  A whining dog kept the whole household awake until dawn.

Where does whining come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the present participle of 'whine', which traces back to the Old English verb hwīnan, meaning 'to whizz' or 'to make a high, whistling sound', often describing an arrow or the wind. The original sense was purely about a thin, sharp noise rather than complaint; only later did the word narrow toward the drawn-out, feeble cry of a person or animal, and from there toward the modern figurative sense of fretful grumbling. The 'wh' spelling preserves the old hw cluster, where Anglo-Saxon writers actually wrote 'hw' before scribes flipped the letters to 'wh' in the Middle Ages. The same hwīnan family is related to Old Norse hvīna, also meaning 'to whistle through the air', which is why the word still carries that sense of a sustained, piercing tone. The spelling trap is the silent 'h' after the 'w' and the single 'n', since the 'e' of 'whine' drops before the -ing ending.

How the word is built

• whine (Old English hwīnan: to whizz, make a whistling sound)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)