weaning
noun, verb
weaning is a noun meaning “The (passive) process of a child or animal ceasing to be dependent on the mother for nourishment” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled W-E-A-N-I-N-G and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 2 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of weaning is weanings.
What does weaning mean?
noun
- 1
The (passive) process of a child or animal ceasing to be dependent on the mother for nourishment.
verb
- 1
present participle and gerund of wean
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce weaning?
Weaning has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of weaning
- weanings plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is weaning?
Weaning appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 39,336th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Weaning in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense process of a child or animal ceasing to be dependent on the mother for nourishme:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | sevrage |
| German | Abstillen, Absetzen |
| Portuguese | ablactação, desmama, desmame |
| Spanish | destete, ablactación |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.