Emily Dickinson Lexicon

WEL'TER-ING, ppr.

Rolling; wallowing; as in mire, blood, or other filthy matter.

WEM, n. [Sax.]

A spot; a scar. [Obs.] Brerewood.

WEM, v.t. [Sax. wemman.]

To corrupt. [Obs.]

WEN, n. [Sax. wenn; D. wen; Arm. guennaen, a wart.]

An encysted tumor which is movable, pulpy, and often elastic to the touch.

WENCH, a. [Sax. wencle. Qu. G. wenig, little.]

1. A young woman. [Little used.] Sidney. Donne.
2. A young woman of ill fame. Prior.
3. In America, a black or colored female servant; a negress.

WENCH, v.i.

To frequent the company of women of ill fame. Addison.

WENCH'ER, n.

A lewd man. Grew.

WENCH'ING, ppr.

Frequenting women of ill fame.

WEND, v.i. [Sax. wendan.]

1. To go; to pass to or from.
2. To turn round. [Obs.] [Wend and wind are from the same root.]

WEN'NEL, n.

A weanel. [See Weanel.] [Obs.]

WEN'NISH, or WEN'NY, a. [from wen.]

Having the nature of a wen.

WENT, pret.

of the verb Wend. We now arrange went in grammar as the preterit of go, but in origin it has no connection with it.

WEPT, pret.

and pp. of Weep. When he had come near, he beheld the city and wept over it. Luke xix.

WERE, a.

A dam. [See Wear.]

WERE, pron. [wer, which when prolonged, becomes ware.]

This is used as the imperfect tense plural of be; we were, you were, they were; and in some other tenses. It is the Danish verb vaerer, to be, to exist Sw. Vara, and in origin has no connection with be, nor with was. It is united with be, to supply its want of tenses, as went is with go.

WER'E-GILD, n. [Sax. ver, man, and the estimated value of a man, and gild, geld, money.]

Formerly, the price of a man's head; compensation paid for a man killed, partly to the king for the loss of a subject, and partly to the lord of the vassal, and partly to the next of kin. It was paid by the murderer. Blackstone.

WER-NE'RI-AN, a.

Pertaining to Werner, the German mineralogist, who arranged minerals in classes, &c., according to their external characters.

WER'NER-ITE, a.

A mineral, regarded by Werner as subspecies of scapolite; called foliated scapolite. It is named from that distinguished mineralogist, Werner. It is found massive, and crystalized in octahedral prisms with four-sided pyramidical terminations, disseminated in rocks of grayish or red feldspar. It is imperfectly lamellar, of a greenish, grayish, or olive green color, with a pearly or resinous luster. It is softer than feldspar, and melts into a white enamel.

WERT,

the second person singular of the subjunctive imperfect tense of be. [See Were.] Werth, worth, in names, signifies a farm, court or village, from Sax. weorthig. Lye, Dict.

WE'SIL,

for Weasand. [Not in use.]

WEST, a.

1. Being in a line toward the point where the sunsets when in the equator; or in a looser sense, being in the region near the line of direction toward that point, either on the earth or in the heavens. This shall be your west border. Numb. xxxiv.
2. Coming or moving from the west or western region; as, a west wind.

WEST, adv.

To the western region; at the westward; more westward; as, Ireland lies west of England.

WEST, n. [Sax. west; D. and G. west; Dan. vest; Sw. vester; Fr. ouest. This word probably signifies decline or fall, or departure; as in L. occidens, and in other cases. In elements, it coincides with waste.]

1. In strictness, that point of the horizon where the sun sets at the equinox, or any point in a direct line between the spectator or other object, and that point of the horizon; or west is the intersection of the prime vertical with the horizon, on that side where the sun sets. West is directly opposite to east, and one of the cardinal points. In a less strict sense, west is the region of the hemisphere near the point where the sun sets when in the equator. Thus we say, a star sets in the west, a meteor appears in the west, a cloud rises in the west.
2. A country situated in a region toward the sun-setting, with respect to another. Thus in the United States, the inhabitants of the Atlantic states speak of the inhabitants of Ohio, Kentucky or Missouri, and call them people of the west; and formerly, the empire of Rome was called the empire of the West, in opposition to the empire of the East, the seat of which was Constantinople.

WEST, v.i.

To pass to the west; to set, as the sun. [Not in use.] Chaucer.

WEST'ER-ING, a.

Passing to the west. [I believe not now used.] Milton.