different between white vs when
white
English
Alternative forms
- whight, whyte, whyght (obsolete)
- White (race-related)
Etymology
From Middle English whit, hwit, from Old English hw?t, from Proto-West Germanic *hw?t, from Proto-Germanic *hw?taz (whence also West Frisian wyt, Dutch wit, German weiß, Norwegian Bokmål hvit, Norwegian Nynorsk kvit), from Proto-Indo-European *?weydós, a byform of *?weytós (“bright; shine”). Compare Lithuanian švi?sti (“to gleam”), šviesa (“light”), Old Church Slavonic ????? (sv?t?, “light”), ??????? (sv?t?l?, “clear, bright”), Persian ????? (sefid), Avestan ????????????????????????? (spa?ta, “white”), Sanskrit ????? (?vetá, “white, bright”).
Pronunciation
- enPR: w?t, IPA(key): /wa?t/
- (without the wine–whine merger) enPR: hw?t, IPA(key): /?a?t/
- Rhymes: -a?t
- Homophones: wight, Wight, wite (accents with the wine-whine merger)
Adjective
white (comparative whiter or more white, superlative whitest or most white)
- Bright and colourless; reflecting equal quantities of all frequencies of visible light.
- c. 1878, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Holidays"
- white as the whitest lily on a stream.
- 1381, quoted in Hans Kurath & Sherman M. Kuhn, eds., Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, ISBN 978-0-472-01044-8, page 1242 (1961):
- dorr??, d?r? adj. & n. […] cook. glazed with a yellow substance; pome(s ~, sopes ~. […] 1381 Pegge Cook. Recipes page 114: For to make Soupys dorry. Nym onyons […] Nym wyn […] toste wyte bred and do yt in dischis, and god Almande mylk.
- Antonyms: black, nonwhite, unwhite
- c. 1878, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Holidays"
- (sometimes capitalized) Of or relating to Caucasians, people of European descent with light-coloured skin.
- (chiefly historical) Designated for use by Caucasians.
- Relatively light or pale in colour.
- Pale or pallid, as from fear, illness, etc.
- (of a person or skin) Lacking coloration (tan) from ultraviolet light; not tanned.
- Synonyms: fair, pale
- Antonym: tanned
- (of coffee or tea) Containing cream, milk, or creamer.
- Antonym: black
- (board games, chess) The standard denomination of the playing pieces of a board game deemed to belong to the white set, no matter what the actual colour.
- Pertaining to an ecclesiastical order whose adherents dress in white habits; Cistercian.
- Honourable, fair; decent.
- White as thy fame, and as thy honour clear.
- 1916, Julia Frankau, Twilight
- He's a fine fellow, this Gabriel Stanton, a white man all through
- 1953, Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye, Penguin, 2010, p.12:
- ‘We've only met twice and you've been more than white to me both times.’
- Grey, as from old age; having silvery hair; hoary.
- (archaic) Characterized by freedom from that which disturbs, and the like; fortunate; happy; favourable.
- (obsolete) Regarded with especial favour; favourite; darling.
- Come forth, my white spouse.
- c. 1626, John Ford, Tis Pity She's a Whore
- I am his white boy, and will not be gulled.
- (politics) Pertaining to constitutional or anti-revolutionary political parties or movements.
- 1932, Duff Cooper, Talleyrand, Folio Society, 2010, p.163:
- Aimée de Coigny had always adopted with enthusiasm the political views of her ruling lover and she had thus already held nearly every shade of opinion from red republicanism to white reaction.
- 1932, Duff Cooper, Talleyrand, Folio Society, 2010, p.163:
- (of tea) Made from immature leaves and shoots.
- (typography) Not containing characters; see white space.
- (typography) Said of a symbol or character outline, not solid, not filled with color. Compare black (“said of a character or symbol filled with color”).
- Compare two Unicode symbols: ? = "WHITE RIGHT POINTING INDEX"; ? = "BLACK RIGHT POINTING INDEX"
- Characterised by the presence of snow.
Derived terms
Related terms
Descendants
- Bislama: waet
- Tok Pisin: wait
- ? Japanese: ???? (howaito)
- white fella
- ? Nyunga: wadjela
- white gin
- ? Gamilaraay: waatyin
- ? Ngiyambaa: wadjiin
- ? Wiradhuri: waajin
Translations
See white/translations § Adjective.
Noun
white (countable and uncountable, plural whites)
- The color/colour of snow or milk; the colour of light containing equal amounts of all visible wavelengths.
- A person of European descent with light-coloured skin.
- Any butterfly of the family Pieridae.
- (countable and uncountable) White wine.
- (countable) Any object or substance that is of the color white.
- The albumen of bird eggs (egg white).
- (anatomy) The sclera, white of the eye.
- (sports, billiards, snooker, pool) The cue ball in cue games.
- (slang, US) Cocaine
- The snow- or ice-covered "green" in snow golf.
- A white pigment.
- Venice white
- (archery) The central part of the butt, which was formerly painted white; the centre of a mark at which a missile is shot.
- The enclosed part of a letter of the alphabet, especially when handwritten.
- 1594, Hugh Plat, The Jewell House of Art and Nature, London, Chapter 38, p. 42,[3]
- Also it giueth a great grace to your writing, if the whites of certeine letters bee made of one equall bignesse with the o. supposing the same were all round, as the white of the b. of the a. p. y. v. w. x. q. d. g. and s.
- 1677, Hannah Woolley, The Compleat Servant-Maid, London: T. Passinger, p. 18,[4]
- […] the a. b. d. g. o. p. q. &c. […] must be made with equal whites.
- 1931, Margery Allingham, Police at the Funeral, Penguin, 1939, Chapter 14, p. 157,[5]
- She copied the whole alphabet like that, as though only the inside whites of the letters registered on her mind.
- 1594, Hugh Plat, The Jewell House of Art and Nature, London, Chapter 38, p. 42,[3]
Derived terms
Translations
Verb
white (third-person singular simple present whites, present participle whiting, simple past and past participle whited)
- (transitive) To make white; to whiten; to bleach.
- whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of […] uncleanness
- so as no fuller on earth can white them
Derived terms
- white out
See also
- leucite
- leukoma
- leukosis
- Sauvignon blanc
- Svetambara
- terra alba
Further reading
- white on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- Race on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- white on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
Anagrams
- withe
Middle English
Adjective
white
- inflection of whit:
- weak singular
- strong/weak plural
- Alternative form of whit
white From the web:
- what white wine is good for cooking
- what white wine is dry
- what whitens teeth
- what white wine is sweet
- what whitening strips are the best
- what white blood cells do
- what white heart means
- what white roses mean
when
English
Alternative forms
- wen (eye dialect)
Etymology
From Middle English when(ne), whanne, from Old English hwenne, hwænne, hwonne (“when”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwan, from Proto-Germanic *hwan (“at what time, when”), from Proto-Indo-European *k?is (“interrogative base”).
Cognate with Dutch wanneer (“when”) and wen (“when, if”), Low German wannehr (“when”), wann (“when”) and wenn (“if, when”), German wann (“when”) and wenn (“when, if”), Gothic ???????????? (?an, “when, how”), Latin quand? (“when”). More at who.
Interjection sense: a playful misunderstanding of "say when" (i.e. say something / speak up when you want me to stop) as "say [the word] when".
Pronunciation
- (General American) enPR: hw?n, w?n, IPA(key): /??n/, /w?n/
- (pin–pen merger) IPA(key): /??n/, /w?n/
- (Ireland, Scotland) enPR: hw?n, IPA(key): /??n/
- (Received Pronunciation) enPR: w?n, IPA(key): /w?n/
- (in accents without the wine–whine merger)
- (in accents with the wine–whine merger)
- (in accents with the wine–whine merger)
- Rhymes: -?n
- Homophone: wen (in accents with the wine-whine merger), win (in accents with the wine–whine merger and the pin–pen merger)
Adverb
when (not comparable)
- (interrogative) At what time? At which time? Upon which occasion or circumstance? Used to introduce direct or indirect questions about time.
- 1834, Samuel Kirkham, English Grammar in Familiar Lectures, page 117:
- What words are used as interrogative pronouns? — Give examples.
- When are the words, what, which, and that, called adj. pron.?
- When are they called interrogative pronominal adjectives?
- 1834, Samuel Kirkham, English Grammar in Familiar Lectures, page 117:
- At an earlier time and under different, usually less favorable, circumstances.
- (relative) At which, on which, during which: often omitted or replaced with that.
Translations
Conjunction
when
- At (or as soon as) that time that; at the (or any and every) time that; if.
- During the time that; at the time of the action of the following clause or participle phrase.
- At what time; at which time.
- 1839, John Donne, The Works of John Donne: Sermons, Letters, Poems, page 310:
- I am at London only to provide for Monday, when I shall use that favour which my Lady Bedford hath afforded me, of giving her name to my daughter; which I mention to you, […]
- 1929, Donald John Munro, The Roaring Forties and After (page 38)
- He sat at the door of his kitchen watching, and seeing there was nothing else for it we buckled to and soon had the job done; when we were admitted to the kitchen and given a really good meal.
- 1839, John Donne, The Works of John Donne: Sermons, Letters, Poems, page 310:
- Since; given the fact that; considering that.
- Whereas; although; at the same time as; in spite of the fact that.
Synonyms
- (as soon as): as soon as, immediately, once
- (every time that): whenever
- (during the time that): while, whilst; see also Thesaurus:while
- (at any time that): whenever
- (at which time):
- (given the fact that): given that, seeing that; see also Thesaurus:because
- (in spite of the fact that): but, where, whereas
Derived terms
- know someone when
- whenwe
Translations
Pronoun
when
- (interrogative) What time; which time.
- 1831 (published), John Davies, Orchestra Or, a Poem of Dancing, in Robert Southey, Select Works of the British Poets: From Chaucer to Jonson, with Biographical Sketches, page 706:
- Homer, to whom the Muses did carouse
- A great deep cup with heav'nly nectar fill'd,
- The greatest, deepest cup in Jove's great house,
- (For Jove himself had so expressly will'd)
- He drank off all, nor let one drop be spill'd;
- Since when, his brain that had before been dry,
- Became the well-spring of all poetry.
- 1833, William Potts Dewees, A Treatise on the Diseases of Females, page 495:
- [This] we imagined might have been owing to some accidental condition of the system, or perhaps idiosyncracy; this led us to a second trial, but we experienced the same inconveniences, since when, we have altogether abandoned their use.
- 2012, Emile Letournel, Robert Judet, Fractures of the Acetabulum, Springer Science & Business Media (?ISBN), page 385:
- So we combined the Kocher-Langenbeck and iliofemoral approach until 1965, since when we have combined the ilioinguinal and Kocher-Langenbeck approaches.
- 1831 (published), John Davies, Orchestra Or, a Poem of Dancing, in Robert Southey, Select Works of the British Poets: From Chaucer to Jonson, with Biographical Sketches, page 706:
- The time that.
Translations
Noun
when (plural whens)
- The time at which something happens.
- 2008, Paolo Aite, Lanscapes of the Psyche, Ipoc Press (?ISBN), page 151:
- For the moment, suffice it to say that the stories told through the whens and hows of building a scene differentiate individual desires and needs more clearly than shared speech was up to then able to communicate.
- 2008, Paolo Aite, Lanscapes of the Psyche, Ipoc Press (?ISBN), page 151:
Translations
Interjection
when
- (often humorous) That's enough, a command to stop adding something, especially an ingredient of food or drink -- referring to say when.
- (obsolete) Expressing impatience. (Compare what.)
- c. 1600, Sir John Oldcastle, iv. 1:
- Set, parson, set; the dice die in my hand.
- When, parson, when! what, can you find no more?
- c. 1615-1657, Thomas Middleton, More Dissemblers Besides Women, volume 1:
- Why, when? begin, sir: I must stay your leisure.
- c. 1600, Sir John Oldcastle, iv. 1:
Translations
Derived terms
- whenever
See also
- since when
References
- when at OneLook Dictionary Search
- when in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
Anagrams
- hewn
Middle English
Etymology 1
Adverb
when
- Alternative form of whenne
Conjunction
when
- Alternative form of whenne
Etymology 2
Verb
when
- Alternative form of winnen (“to win”)
when From the web:
- what when is father's day
- what when is mother's day
- what when is easter
- what when is memorial day
- what when where austin
- what when wine
- what when you die
- what when where who why how grammar
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