whet

From Middle English whetten, from Old English hwettan (“to whet, sharpen, incite, encourage”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwattjan, from Proto-Germanic *hwatjaną (“to incite, sharpen”), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷeh₁d- (“sharp”).

Cognate with Dutch wetten (“to whet, sharpen”), German wetzen (“to whet, sharpen”), Icelandic hvetja (“to whet, encourage, catalyze”), dialectal Danish hvæde (“to whet”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈwɛt/
  • (without wine–whine) IPA^(key): /ˈʍɛt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈwɛt/, [ˈwɛ(ʔ)t̚]
  • (without wine–whine) IPA^(key): /ˈʍɛt/, [ˈʍɛ(ʔ)t̚]

• Audio (US, with wine-whine merger)

  (file)

• Audio (US, without wine-whine merger)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛt
• Homophone: wet (with wine–whine merger)

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1. (transitive) To hone or rub on with some substance, as a piece of stone, for the purpose of sharpening – see whetstone.
   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:

     Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly?

   • a. 1645, John Milton, “L’Allegro”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, […], London: […] Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, […], published 1646, →OCLC, page 33:

     And the Mower whets his ſithe,

   • 1812, Lord Byron, “Canto II”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. A Romaunt, London: Printed for John Murray, […]; William Blackwood, Edinburgh; and John Cumming, Dublin; by Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC, stanza XLII:

     Here roams the wolf, the eagle whets his beak.

2. (transitive) To stimulate or make more keen.

   to whet one's appetite or one's courage

   • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:

     Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar, / I have not slept.

   • 1925-29, Mahadev Desai (translator), M.K. Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Part I, chapter xv:

     My faith in vegetarianism grew on me from day to day. Salt's book whetted my appetite for dietetic studies. I went in for all books available on vegetarianism and read them.

   • 2003 October 9, Naomi Wolf, “The Porn Myth”, in New York Magazine‎:

     In the end, porn doesn’t whet men’s appetites—it turns them off the real thing.

3. (transitive, obsolete) To preen.

• whetter (rare)
• whetstone

whet (plural whets)

1. The act of whetting something.
2. That which whets or sharpens; especially, an appetizer.
   • 1714 July 30 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison], “MONDAY, July 19, 1714”, in The Spectator, number 569; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume VI, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:

     sips, drams, and whets

     The spelling has been modernized.

   • 1769, Elizabeth Raffald, The Experienced English Housekeeper:

     To make a nice Whet before Dinner […]

   • 1902, Robert Marshall Grade, The Haunted Major:

     A really good game, to my mind, must have an element, however slight, of physical danger to the player. This is the great whet to skilled performance.

• Thew, thew

whet

1. Alternative form of whete

From Middle English whete, from Old English hwǣte, from Proto-West Germanic *hwaitī.

whet

1. wheat

• 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, London: J. Russell Smith, page 78