different between shred vs whit

English

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /???d/
• Rhymes: -?d

Etymology 1

From Middle English shrede, shred, from Old English s?r?ad, s?r?ade, from Proto-Germanic *skraud? (“a cut, shred”). Doublet of escrow.

Noun

shred (plural shreds)

1. A long, narrow piece cut or torn off; a strip.
2. In general, a fragment; a piece; a particle; a very small amount.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:modicum.

Related terms

• screed

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English shreden, from Old English s?r?adian, from Proto-West Germanic *skraud?n, related to Proto-West Germanic *skraudan (“to cut up, shred”).

Verb

shred (third-person singular simple present shreds, present participle shredding, simple past shredded, past participle shredded or shred)

1. To cut or tear into narrow and long pieces or strips.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Chaucer to this entry?)
2. To reduce by a large percentage.
3. (obsolete, transitive) To lop; to prune; to trim.
4. (snowboarding) To ride aggressively.
5. (bodybuilding) To drop fat and water weight before a competition.
6. (music, slang) To play very fast (especially guitar solos in rock and metal genres).

Derived terms

• shredder

Translations

References

Further reading

• shred in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• shred in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• herds, sherd

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English wi?t, wight, from Old English wiht (“wight, person, creature, being, whit, thing, something, anything”), from Proto-Germanic *wiht? (“thing, creature”) or *wihtiz (“essence, object”), from Proto-Indo-European *wekti- (“cause, sake, thing”), from *wek?- (“to say, tell”). Cognate with Old High German wiht (“creature, thing”), Dutch wicht, German Wicht. Doublet of wight.

Pronunciation

• enPR: w?t, hw?t, IPA^(key): /w?t/, /??t/
• Rhymes: -?t
• Homophone: wit (in accents with the wine-whine merger)

Noun

whit (plural whits)

1. The smallest part or particle imaginable; an iota.
   • 1602: William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act V scene 2

     Not a whit.

   • 1917, Incident by Countee Cullen

     Now I was eight and very small, / And he was no whit bigger / And so I smiled, but he poked out / His tongue, and called me, 'Nigger.'

Synonyms

• (smallest part imaginable): bit, iota, jot, scrap
• See also Thesaurus:modicum.

Translations

Etymology 2

Preposition

whit

1. Pronunciation spelling of with.

Anagrams

• with, with-

Middle English

Alternative forms

• hwit, white, whyte, whitt, whytt, whyt, whi?t, qwyght, ?wijt, wyghte, whiyt, whijt

Etymology

Old English hw?t, from Proto-Germanic *hw?taz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?i?t/

Adjective

whit (plural and weak singular white, comparative whitter, superlative whittest)

1. white, pale, light (in color)
2. (referring to people) wearing white clothes
3. (referring to people) having white skin
4. attractive, fair, beautiful
5. bright, shining, brilliant
6. (referring to plants) having white flowers
7. (heraldry) silver, argent (tincture)
8. (alchemy) Inducing the transmutation of a substance into silver
9. (medicine) Unusually light; bearing the pallor of death

Related terms

• snow whit

Descendants

• English: white (see there for further descendants)
• Scots: quhite, fyte, fite, whyte, white
• Yola: whit

References

• “wh?t, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-30.

Noun

whit

1. white (colour)
2. white pigment
3. The white of an egg
4. The white of an eye
5. white fabric
6. white wine
7. dairy products
8. Other objects notable for being white

Descendants

• English: white
• Scots: quhite, fyte, fite, whyte, white

References

• “wh?t, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-30.

See also

Scots

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [??t]

Pronoun

whit

1. Alternative form of what

References

• “what, pron., adv., adj., conj., interj..” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries.