whet

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English whetten,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English hwettan (“to sharpen; to incite”),^[5][6][3][7] from Proto-Germanic *hwatjaną (“to sharpen; to incite”).^[1][8] This is a causative verb built on the adjective *hwataz (“quick, sharp, bold”),^[4][8][9] which survives in Old English hwæt (“brave, bold”), Old Saxon hwat (“sharp”), Old High German waz (“sharp”) and Old Norse hvatr (“bold, vigorous”).^[9][10][4] The verb is cognate with Middle Low German wetten, Middle Dutch wetten, Dutch wetten, Old High German wezzan, German wetzen and Old Norse hvetja (“to sharpen, to incite”),^[6][9][10] and with a verb meaning to incite in Gothic.^[9][4][11] Etymonline and Barnhart trace the adjective to Proto-Indo-European *kwed- (“to sharpen, to prick”),^[3][9] which Wiktionary writes *kʷeh₁d- (“sharp”).^[1] Barnhart and Klein compare Latin triquetrus (“three-cornered”), which Merriam-Webster Unabridged calls only probably akin.^[9][10][4] Etymonline and Klein also compare a Sanskrit verb meaning to incite, literally to sharpen.^[3][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

To incite, to urge on: Barnhart dates hwettan to about 725, in Beowulf, and the OED's first quotation for this sense is from the same poem.^[9][6] The literal sense "to sharpen" appears in King Alfred's translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care: Se lǣce his seax hwæt, "the physician sharpens his knife".^[6][5]

Semantic evolution

Old English already had both the literal sharpening of a blade and the figurative urging on of a person, and it also used the verb of a boar or other animal sharpening its tusks or teeth before an attack.^[6][5] The sense of inciting someone died out, the last record being from 1761.^[6][11] From the first half of the 15th century the verb also meant making a person's wits, appetite or curiosity keener.^[6][11][4] From 1528, in Tyndale, translators of Deuteronomy used it for a Hebrew verb meaning literally "to sharpen" and figuratively "to inculcate", a use that lasted until 1665.^[6] The noun was formed from the verb before 1628, first for an act of sharpening and for the interval between two sharpenings of a scythe, and hence, in dialect, an occasion or turn.^[6][9][12] A whet was then something that stimulated the appetite, from 1688, in Shadwell, and something that stimulated desire in general, from 1698.^[6][3] Johnson (1755) defined it as anything that makes one hungry, "as a dram".^[13] The phrase whet one's whistle (1674) replaced the earlier wet with whet.^[6] English dialects kept a whet as a morning dram, as a drink among harvesters in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and East Anglia, and as a hasty snack in Suffolk; in the north it was also the ground mown between two sharpenings of the scythe.^[12]

Timeline

• c. 725 – to incite, to urge on (obsolete by 1761), in Beowulf.^[9][6]
• Old English – to sharpen a blade or tool; of a boar, to sharpen its tusks.^[6][5]
• 1398 – without an object, to get ready for an attack.^[6]
• before 1450 – to make wits, appetite or interest keener.^[6]
• 1528 – to inculcate, in renderings of Deuteronomy (obsolete by 1665).^[6]
• before 1628 – noun, an act of sharpening; the interval between two sharpenings.^[6][9][4]
• 1674 – to whet one's whistle, to take a drink.^[6]
• 1688 – noun, something that stimulates the appetite.^[6][3]
• 1698 – noun, an incitement to action.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To sharpen a blade or tool, especially by rubbing it on a stone; to hone: He whetted the sickle before starting on the long grass.^[14][4][6]
2. To make an appetite, desire or interest keener; to stimulate: The first chapter whetted her curiosity.^[14][4][6]
3. whet one's whistle: to take a drink.^[6][11]
4. (archaic) To urge on or incite.^[4][6][11]

Noun

1. Something that stimulates the appetite or a desire, especially a small drink before a meal; an aperitif.^[4][6][11]
2. An act of sharpening.^[14][6][11]
3. (dialect) The spell of work between two sharpenings of a scythe; hence a turn or a while.^[4][6][12]

Word family

• whetter

Related words

• whetstone
• triquetra
• wet

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins