Whinyard

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A sword, especially a hanger. obsolete

    "It is not a necessary inference that he was wounded, though she says they struck him over her shoulder with whinyards; their object, undoubtedly, was to get him out of the queen's presence in the first place."

  2. 2
    The shoveler, a type of duck. UK, dialectal, obsolete
  3. 3
    The pochard, a type of duck. UK, dialectal, obsolete

Example

More examples

"It is not a necessary inference that he was wounded, though she says they struck him over her shoulder with whinyards; their object, undoubtedly, was to get him out of the queen's presence in the first place."

Etymology

Compare English dialect and Scots whingar, whinger; perhaps from Old English winn (“contention, war”) + geard, gyrd (“a staff, rod, yard”); or compare Old English [Term?] (“whistle”, verb), English whine.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.