whine
part of speech
verb (whine, whines, whined, whining); noun (a whine)
meaning for a pupil
1) To complain in an annoying, high, unhappy voice, often about small things. tree →
2) Of a dog or another animal: to make a long, high, sad sound. tree →
3) Of a machine: to make a long, high, steady noise, like a drill or a jet engine. tree →
4) (noun) The sound itself, or a complaint. tree →
sense in the lessons
In everyday life parents say "Stop whining!" when children complain. In stories, a dog whines at the door to go out, and engines whine. Calling someone "a whiner" is a bit unkind. Phrases: "whine about", "stop whining", "the whine of an engine".
examples
- Stop whining and eat your carrots. tree →
- The dog whined at the door to go out. tree →
- My brother whines whenever it's his turn to wash up. tree →
- We heard the whine of the dentist's drill. tree →
- The jet engine gave a high whine. tree →
- "It's not fair," she whined. tree →
- The puppy gave a little whine when we left. tree →
- The whine had changed to a sort of humming purr that seemed to come from every quarter of the compass. tree →
note
Regular verb: whined, whining. Homophone trap: "whine" sounds like "wine" (a drink made from grapes); only "whine" has an h. In the USA "whine" is common for complaining; in the UK people also say "moan" or "whinge" (whinge is also used in Australia).
In the corpora
- "Use your words" means stop hitting, screaming or whining and say what you want.
- No wonder he is whining at his bowl.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «whine» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.