Ween
noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Doubt; conjecture. obsolete
- 2 wiener dog, dachshund slang
- 3 penis slang
- 1 To suppose, imagine; to think, believe. archaic
"And when they will fight they will shock them together in a plump; that if there be 20000 men, men shall not ween that there be scant 10000."
- 2 To weep or cry. Northern-England, Scotland, rare
"The boy's mother weened day and night."
- 3 Misspelling of wean. alt-of, misspelling
- 4 To expect, hope or wish. dated
- 5 To lament. obsolete
Example
More examples"Then his plaintive tone / no more could Venus bear, but interrupts her son: / "Stranger", she answered, "whosoe'er thou be; / not unbeloved of heavenly powers, I ween, / thou breath'st the vital air, whom Fate's decree / permits a Tyrian city to have seen.""
Etymology
From Middle English wene, from Old English wēn, wēna (“hope, weening, expectation”), from Proto-West Germanic *wāni, from Proto-Germanic *wēniz, *wēnǭ (“hope, expectation”), from Proto-Indo-European *wenh₁- (“to strive, love, want, reach, win”). Cognate with Dutch waan (“delusion”), Afrikaans waan (“delusion”), German Wahn (“illusion, false hope”).
From Middle English wenen, from Old English wēnan, from Proto-Germanic *wēnijaną. Cognate with Dutch wanen, German wähnen.
From Middle English weinen (“to wail, lament”), from Old English wānian (“to bewail, lament”), from Proto-Germanic *wainōną (“to cry, lament, grieve”). Cognate with Dutch wenen (“to weep, cry”), German weinen (“to weep, cry”), Icelandic veina (“to wail, cry out”), West Frisian weine (“to weep, cry”).
Abbreviation of wiener dog
Abbreviation of wiener (penis)
More for "ween"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.