whin
/wɪn/
"whin" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“whin” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 4
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Gorse; furze (Ulex spp.).
Corpus desk
Index EN-whin · whin · English
whin · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "W" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | whin |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /wɪn/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “whin” in English
Rare enough to double-check
whin is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /wɪn/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for whin in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English whynne, from Old Norse hvein (“gorse, furze”) (compare Norwegian kvein (“bent grass”), Swedish ven (“bent grass”), dialectal hven (“swamp”)), apparently from hvein (“swampy land”), from Proto-Germanic *hwainō, *hwin- (“swamp; moor”), fro… The correct English form is whin, spelled W-H-I-N.
Definition
- 1Gorse; furze (Ulex spp.).
- 2The plant woad-waxen (Genista tinctoria).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how whin appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
1790, Robert Burns, Tam o' Shanter, 1828, Thomas Park (editor), Works of the British Poets, Volume XX: The Poems of Robert Burns, page 65, By this time he was cross the ford, / Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor'd; / And past the birks and meikle stane, / Whare drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane; / And through the whins, and by the cairn, / Whare hunters f…
And sometimes they clambered down […] and saw the whin bushes climb black the white hills beside them and far and away the blink of lights across the moors where folk lay happed and warm.
Etymology
From Middle English whynne, from Old Norse hvein (“gorse, furze”) (compare Norwegian kvein (“bent grass”), Swedish ven (“bent grass”), dialectal hven (“swamp”)), apparently from hvein (“swampy land”), from Proto-Germanic *hwainō, *hwin- (“swamp; moor”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱʷeyn- (“to soil; mud; filth”). Compare Latin caenum (“filth”), Latin inquīnō (“to sully; soil”).
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.