Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To neigh, as a horse, especially in a gentle tone.
  • intransitive verb To express in a whinny.
  • noun The sound made in whinnying; a neigh.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • A bounding in whins or whin-bushes.
  • A bounding in or resembling whinstone.
  • To utter the cry of a horse; neigh.
  • noun The act of whinnying; a neigh.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To utter the ordinary call or cry of a horse; to neigh.
  • noun The ordinary cry or call of a horse; a neigh.
  • adjective Abounding in whin, gorse, or furze.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A gentle neigh.
  • verb transitive, intransitive, of a horse To make a gentle neigh.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb make a characteristic sound, of a horse
  • noun the characteristic sounds made by a horse

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably akin to whine, to whinny.]

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Examples

  • But there was no movement about the fire, and another whinny was the only sound that came from its direction.

    With Hoops of Steel Florence Finch Kelly 1898

  • We felt compelled to look into this, and what we found was that the whinny is a complex call full of relevant social information.

    TheHorse.com News 2009

  • At the end of the last chorus - the last chorus, the band does something; the saxophonists do a fast kind of whinny trill.

    100 Years Of Jazz Clarinetist Artie Shaw 2010

  • A mare, with her young foal, was grazing in an orchard on an American farm, when she was noticed to run at full speed from a distant part of the orchard, making a loud cry -- not like her usual voice, but a kind of unnatural "whinny," like a scream of distress.

    Little Folks A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) Various

  • Grandmother murmured something in embarrassment, but the Bohemian woman laughed scornfully, a kind of whinny-laugh, and catching up an empty coffee-pot from the shelf, shook it at us with a look positively vindictive.

    My Ántonia Willa Sibert Cather 1910

  • Grandmother murmured something in embarrassment, but the Bohemian woman laughed scornfully, a kind of whinny-laugh, and, catching up an empty coffee-pot from the shelf, shook it at us with a look positively vindictive.

    My Antonia Willa Sibert Cather 1910

  • Hear her "whinny" when you pet her back or forehead, then feed her the carrot and hear her munch.

    unknown title 2009

  • Hear her "whinny" when you pet her back or forehead, then feed her the carrot and hear her munch.

    unknown title 2009

  • Hear her "whinny" when you pet her back or forehead, then feed her the carrot and hear her munch.

    unknown title 2009

  • Their common "whinny" sounds pretty much like a horse whinny.

    unknown title 2009

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