whynne

Middle English

Alternative forms

qwynne, wynne, qwyne, whyn

Etymology

Of North Germanic origin, borrowed from Old Norse hvein (the source of modern Swedish ven (“bentgrass”)), from Proto-Germanic *hwin-, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *kʷoi-no-, referring to its tall, sharp stalks.^[1]

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /hwin/
(dialectal) IPA^(key): /win/, /xwin/

Noun

whynne (plural whynnes)

Gorse or a similar plant.

Descendants

English: whin
Scots: whin

References

“whin, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 23 September 2018.

^ Kroonen, Guus (2013) “hwaino”, in Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 11)‎^[1], Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 261