whin
/wɪn/ noun
Forms whins
Synonyms
gorse furze Irish gorse Ulex europaeus woodwaxen dyer's greenweed dyer's-broom dyeweed greenweed woadwaxen Genista tinctoria whinstone
Etymology
From Middle English whynne, from Old Norse hvein (“gorse, furze”) (compare Norwegian kvein (“bent grass”), Swedish ven (“bent grass”), dialectal hven (“swamp”)), apparently from hvein (“swampy land”), from Proto-Germanic *hwainō, *hwin- (“swamp; moor”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱweyn- (“to soil; mud; filth”). Compare Latin caenum (“filth”), Latin inquīnō (“to sully; soil”).
Webster’s 1913
- noun (a) Gorse; furze. See Furze.
- noun Same as Whinstone. [Prov. Eng.] Moor whin or Petty whin (Bot.), a low prickly shrub (Genista Anglica) common in Western Europe.
Etymology [W. chwyn weeds, a single weed.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “whin”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details