different between wee vs wae

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: w?, IPA^(key): /wi?/
• Rhymes: -i?
• Homophones: oui, we, whee (in accents with the wine-whine merger), Wii

Etymology 1

From Middle English wey, weygh, wegh, we?e, wæ?e (“little bit”), from Old English w??, w??e (“weight”), from Proto-Germanic *w?g? (“scales, weight”) and *w?g? (“weight”), related to Middle English we?an (“to move, weigh”) (15c).

Adjective

wee (comparative weer, superlative weest)

1. (Scotland, Ireland, Northern England, New Zealand) Small, little.
   • 2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin 2009, p. 73:

     I had not seen a wee boy do it like that before. He was weer than me and his swimming was just like splashing about.

   You looked a little cold, so I lit a wee fire.

Translations

Noun

wee

1. A short time or short distance.

References

• Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary: Tenth Edition (1997)

Etymology 2

Onomatopoeic for the sound of urination. The noun derives from the verb.

Noun

wee (uncountable)

1. (colloquial, uncountable) Urine.
2. (colloquial) An act of urination.

   I need to have a wee

Synonyms

• (all senses): wee-wee
• (urine): See Thesaurus:urine
• (urination): See Thesaurus:urination

Translations

Verb

wee (third-person singular simple present wees, present participle weeing, simple past and past participle weed)

1. (colloquial) To urinate.

Synonyms

• wee-wee, see also Thesaurus:urinate

Derived terms

• wee-wee

Translations

Etymology 3

• see we

Pronoun

wee (personal pronoun)

1. obsolete emphatic of we
   • 1645 Marhc, John Milton, Tetrachordon.

Anagrams

• Ewe, eew, ewe

Afar

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /we?/

Verb

wee

1. (transitive) to lack

References

• Mohamed Hassan Kamil (2015) L’afar: description grammaticale d’une langue couchitique (Djibouti, Erythrée et Ethiopie)?^[1], Paris: Université Sorbonne Paris Cité (doctoral thesis)

Dutch

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *wai. Compare Old English w? (English woe), Old High German w? (German weh), Old Norse vei.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?e?/
• Rhymes: -e?

Adjective

wee (not comparable)

1. nauseating

Inflection

Noun

wee f (plural weeën, diminutive weetje n)

1. contraction during labour or childbirth

2. (archaic) sorrow, sadness, pain, woe (used in interjections of despair or annoyance)

Derived terms

• (sorrow): o wee, ach en wee, heimwee

Anagrams

• Ewe

Kikuyu

Pronoun

wee (second person singular)

1. Alternative spelling of we (“you, thou”)

Middle Dutch

Etymology

From Old Dutch *w?, from Proto-Germanic *wai.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /we?/

Interjection

wêe

1. woe!

Descendants

• Dutch: wee

Adjective

wêe

1. unpleasant, painful

Inflection

This adjective needs an inflection-table template.

Descendants

• Dutch: wee

Noun

wêe f

1. pain

Inflection

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Descendants

• Dutch: wee
• Limburgish: wieë

Further reading

• “wee”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000
• Verwijs, E.; Verdam, J. (1885–1929) , “wee (I)”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, ?ISBN, page I

Middle English

Noun

wee

1. Alternative form of we (“woe”)

Scots

Pronunciation

• enPR: w?, IPA^(key): /wi?/

Adjective

wee (comparative weer, superlative weest)

1. (standard, Ulster) small, little, tiny

Yola

Pronoun

wee

1. we

Preposition

wee

1. with

References

Jacob Poole (1867) , William Barnes, editor, A glossary, with some pieces of verse, of the old dialect of the English colony in the baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, J. Russell Smith, ?ISBN

English

Noun

wae (countable and uncountable, plural waes)

1. (Scotland) woe

   Wae is me!

Anagrams

• AEW, Awe, EAW, WEA, awe, eaw

Buginese

Alternative forms

• ???
• uae (Soppeng)

Etymology

From Proto-South Sulawesi *wai, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *wahi?.

Noun

wae (Lontara spelling ???)

1. water (clear liquid H?O)

Buru (Indonesia)

Etymology

From Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *wahi?.

Noun

wae

1. (Namrole Bay) water

References

• Greenhill, S.J., Blust. R, & Gray, R.D. (2008). The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database: From Bioinformatics to Lexomics. Evolutionary Bioinformatics, 4:271-283.

Scots

Etymology

From Old English w?, w?a, from Proto-Germanic *wai, whence also Dutch wee, German Weh, weh, Danish ve, Yiddish ????? (vey). Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wai. Compare Latin vae, Albanian vaj, French ouais, Ancient Greek ???? (ouaí), Persian ???? (vây) (Turkish vay, a Persian borrowing), and Armenian ??? (vay).

Noun

wae (plural waes)

1. woe

Anagrams

• awe