Whites

How to spell whites

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce whites

What does whites mean?

1. nounItems of white clothing or linen, especially when sorted for washing.
2. nounThe pale parts of the eyeballs surrounding the coloured iris.
3. nounThe white clothing worn for sports such as cricket or tennis.

Whites in a sentence

• She always washes the whites separately so they stay bright.

• The whites of his eyes were red after the long flight.

• The cricketers changed into their whites before the match.

• A stray red sock turned all the whites a faint pink.

• Yellowing in the whites of the eyes can signal a liver problem.

• The club still requires full whites on the tennis court.

Where does whites come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is the plural of 'white', which descends from the Old English hwit, meaning 'bright' or 'shining' as well as the colour we know today. That word goes back to a common Germanic ancestor, with close relatives such as the Dutch 'wit' and the German 'weiss', all carrying the sense of brightness and clarity. The same ancient root is thought to be connected to words for radiance and even for wheat, whose pale grain may have suggested the name. The spelling preserves the old 'hw' cluster, which English long ago flipped to 'wh' on the page while many speakers still pronounce it as a plain 'w'. As a plural noun, 'whites' came to name collections of pale things: white clothing, white wines, and the pale parts of the eyes or an egg.

How the word is built

• white (from Old English hwit: bright, clear)
• -s (plural)