noun · 6 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Pronunciation
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wīn
/wɪn/
hwīnwithout the wine–whine merger
/ʍɪn/without the wine–whine merger
rhymes with -ɪn
homophone: win (wine–whine merger)
1
noun
Meaning 1
Gorse; furze (Ulex spp.).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: countable, uncountable
Examples
1790, Robert Burns, Tam o' Shanter, 1828, Thomas Park (editor), Works of the British Poets, Volume XX: The Poems of Robert Burns, page 65, By this time he was cross the ford, / Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor'd; / And past the birks and meikle stane, / Whare drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane; / And through the whins, and by the cairn, / Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn; / And near the thorn, aboon the well, / Whare Mungo's mither hang'd hersel.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
2
noun
Meaning 2
The plant woad-waxen (Genista tinctoria).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: countable, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
3
noun
Meaning 3
Whinstone.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
4
noun
Meaning 4
any of various hard colored rocks (especially rocks consisting of chert or basalt)
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: whinstone
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: rock, stone
5
noun
Meaning 5
small Eurasian shrub having clusters of yellow flowers that yield a dye; common as a weed in Britain and the United States; sometimes grown as an ornamental
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
From Middle English whynne, from Old Norse hvein (“gorse, furze”) (compare Norwegian kvein (“bent grass”), Swedish ven (“bent grass”), dialectal hven (“swamp”)), apparently from hvein (“swampy land”), from Proto-Germanic *hwainō, *hwin- (“swamp; moor”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱweyn- (“to soil; mud; filth”). Compare Latin caenum (“filth”), Latin inquīnō (“to sully; soil”).
