wee
pronunciation
How to pronounce wee in British English:
UK [wi:]
How to pronounce wee in American English:
US [wi]
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- Noun:
- a short time
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- Verb:
- eliminate urine
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- Adjective:
- (used informally) very small
- very early
Word Origin
- wee
- wee: English has two words wee. The older, ‘small’ [OE], was originally a noun, Old English wēg or wēge. This meant ‘weight’, and is closely related to English weigh. Its use in contexts such as a little wee, literally ‘a small weight’, meant that by the 13th century it had shifted semantically to ‘small amount’, but it did not become an adjective until the 15th century. Weeny was derived from it in the 18th century. Wee ‘urine, urinate’ [20] and its reduplication wee-wee [20] are nursery words, and no doubt originated in some sort of fanciful imitation of the sound of urinating.=> weigh
- wee (adj.)
- "extremely small," mid-15c., from earlier noun use in sense of "quantity, amount" (such as a littel wei "a little thing or amount," c. 1300), from Old English wæge "weight" (see weigh). Adjectival use wee bit apparently developed as parallel to such forms as a bit thing "a little thing." Wee hours is attested by 1891, from Scottish phrase wee sma' hours (1819). Wee folk "faeries" is recorded from 1819. Weeny "tiny, small" is from 1790.
Example
- 1. I really needed this wee break from lucie and lachlan .
- 2. She is a loe come wee thing .
- 3. It tastes insipid yet a slow sipping will doubtless yield a wee bit of sweetness .
- 4. Sometimes I get up to pee in the wee small hours .
- 5. Find wee little men , and hide with them !