white wine
[white a. 2 a. Cf. L. vinum album, F. vin blanc, G. weisswein.]
Any light-coloured transparent wine: a general designation for wines of various colours from pale yellow to amber, in contradistinction to red wine.
| [a 1300: see red a. and n.1 16.] 1377 Langl. P. Pl. B. Prol. 228 White wyn of Oseye and red wyn of Gascoigne. c 1430 Two Cookery-bks. 35 Draw vppe þorw a straynoure with a lytyl whyte Wyne & Sugre. c 1435 Torr. Portugale 292 Sche byrlyd whyt wyne and Rede. 1528 Paynell Salerne's Regim. F iij, White wyne enflameth or heteth leest of all wynes. 1617 Moryson Itin. iii. 133 France..yeelds great plenty of red and white wines. 1749 R. James Diss. Fevers (ed. 2) 31 She set forward for London, and upon the Road drank near a Bottle of White-Wine. 1818 Scott Hrt. Midl. xlvi, Even white wine and claret were got for nothing, since the Duke's..rights of admiralty gave him a title to all the wine in cask which is drifted ashore. 1857 Miller Elem. Chem., Org. (1862) iii. §1. 160 Red grapes may be made to yield a ‘white’ wine. |
b. attrib., as
white wine cask;
white wine vinegar, vinegar made from white wine;
white wine whey, a medicinal drink consisting of white wine and whey (
cf. whey n. 1 b).
| 1567–8 in Swayne Churchw. Acc. Sarum (1896) 113 A *whyte wyne caske. |
| 1620 Venner Via Recta vi. 97 *White wine Vinegar is generally to be preferred. 1769 Mrs. Raffald Engl. Housekpr. (1778) 27 Add to it a spoonful of white wine vinegar. |
| 1749 Lady Luxborough Let. to Shenstone 8 Sept., Since blankets and *white-wine-whey have not cured you. 1824 Miss Mitford Village Ser. i. Old Bach., Andrews,..regular as ‘the chimes at midnight’, prepared his white-wine whey. 1890 R. C. Lehmann Harry Fludyer 6 Blathers is..giving him some white wine whey cook has just sent up. |