Hwinan

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Of an Old English verb, to produce a whistling or hissing noise through the air ; to mourn aloud or waste away with grief and longing
2. An archaic verb describing a sharp whizzing or hissing sound ; a plaintive moaning or languishing in sorrow and yearning
3. Meaning to emit a thin whistling or sibilant sound ; to lament sorrowfully and gradually fade away from longing

Etymology: Old English "hwinan" meant "to whine," or more precisely to make a thin, high-pitched, plaintive sound, and it was a verb of simple sound-making that English speakers used for the moaning of wind, the cries of animals, and the complaints of people. It is the ancestor of the modern "whine," which kept the sense of a high, drawn-out, unhappy noise and later took on the figurative meaning of complaining. The word belongs to a group of Germanic sound verbs, and its relatives in other languages show the same idea of a breathy, humming or whistling noise. Its descent into modern English was steady rather than dramatic: the "hw" spelling was later simplified to "wh" in many words, which is why the older form looks so different from the modern one while the sense has barely moved.