hinny

• enPR: hĭn'ē, IPA^(key): /ˈhɪ.ni/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪni

From Latin hinnus – possibly cognate with hinnire (“to whinny”).

hinny (plural hinnies)

1. The hybrid offspring of a stallion (male horse) and a she-ass (female donkey).

   Synonym: (UK dialectal) fummel

   • 2001, Ursula K. Le Guin, “On the High Marsh”, in Tales from Earthsea:

     The curer said nothing to the cowboy but went straight to the mule, or hinny, rather, being out of San's big jenny by Alder's white horse.

• mule

Alteration of whinny, which is onomatopoeic.

hinny (third-person singular simple present hinnies, present participle hinnying, simple past and past participle hinnied)

1. To whinny

From standard English honey.

hinny (plural hinnies)

2. (Geordie) A term of endearment usually for women.
   • 2016, Kerry Greenwood, Murder and Mendelssohn, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 310:

     `You will make a great diagnostician, nae doot, my hinny, but you need tae improve your bedside manner.'

• “hinny” in Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary: Based on Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, 7th edition, Springfield, Mass.: G[eorge] & C[harles] Merriam, 1963 (1967 printing), →OCLC.
• Frank Graham, editor (1987), “HINNY”, in The New Geordie Dictionary, Rothbury, Northumberland: Butler Publishing, →ISBN.
• Northumberland Words, English Dialect Society, R. Oliver Heslop, 1893–4
• Scott Dobson, Dick Irwin “hinny”, in Newcastle 1970s: Durham & Tyneside Dialect Group‎^[1], archived from the original on 5 September 2024.