wean

«wean» in Mova's school dictionary: to slowly stop feeding it only on its mother's milk and… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 4 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

verb (wean, weans, weaned, weaning); noun (a wean — Scottish dialect, a child)

meaning for a pupil

1) To wean a baby or young animal is to slowly stop feeding it only on its mother's milk and start giving it other food. tree →

2) To wean someone off something is to help them slowly stop needing or using it («wean off sugar», «wean off screens»). tree →

3) (Scotland, dialect) A wean is a small child. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science lessons about life cycles, mammals feed their young on milk until they are weaned. In everyday life parents talk about weaning a baby onto mashed food, and people try to wean themselves off habits. In Scotland, «the weans» means the kids.

examples

• Puppies are weaned at about eight weeks. tree →
• Mum is weaning the baby onto mashed carrots. tree →
• Lambs are weaned from their mothers in summer. tree →
• I am trying to wean myself off fizzy drinks. tree →
• The doctor weaned him off the medicine slowly. tree →
• (Scotland) Get the weans ready for school! tree →
• The calf was weaned and moved to the field. tree →

note

Regular verb: weaned. Common pattern: «wean somebody off/from something», «wean onto solid food». Sounds like «ween»; the Scottish noun is pronounced «wayn».

In the corpora

• And the child grew, and was weaned.
• And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.
• Them that are weaned from the milk, them that are drawn from the breasts?
• Now when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived, and bore a son.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «wean» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.