▪ I. wheeze, n.
(hwiːz)
[f. next.]
1. An act of wheezing; a whistling sound caused by difficult breathing.
| 1834 Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) I. 477 note, A loud sibilant or dry sonorous rhoncus, corresponding with the loud sighing wheeze, audible by the naked ear. 1848 Dickens Dombey xx, A wheeze very like the cough of a horse. 1872 Calverley Fly Leaves 90 A ladylike sneeze, Or a portly papa's more elaborate wheeze. |
b. transf. A sound resembling this.
| 1835 Longfellow Outre-Mer, Vill. Auteuil (1886) 55 The last wheeze of the clarionet died upon my ear. 1880 Swinburne Stud. Shaks. 220 A somewhat hoarse and reedy wheeze from the scrannel-pipe of a lesser player than Pan. |
c. Phonetics. A whisper (see whisper n.) intensified by further contraction of the glottis.
| 1890 Sweet Primer of Phonetics (1902) 12 Wheeze. If we strongly exaggerate an ordinary whisper, we get that hoarse, wheezy sound known as the ‘wheezing’ or ‘stage whisper’. |
2. orig. Theatr. slang, A joke or comic gag introduced into the performance of a piece by a clown or comedian, esp. a comic phrase or saying introduced repeatedly; hence, (gen. slang or colloq.) a catch phrase constantly repeated; more widely, a trick or dodge frequently used; also, a piece of special information, a ‘tip’.
| 1864 P. Paterson Glimpses Real Life 131 The art of getting up ‘wheezes’, as the clown's jokes are called. 1884 G. Moore Mummer's Wife xiv, Up to the present, only one ‘wheeze’ had been found. 1885 Longm. Mag. Nov. 18 He [sc. the comedian]..would, for a quarter of an hour together, improvise ‘wheezes’ to keep the house in a roar. 1890 Spectator 17 May 698/2 The now hackneyed wheeze, ‘A sudden thought strikes me, let us swear eternal friendship,’ is taken from ‘The Rovers’. 1903 Blackw. Mag. Oct. 534/1 He is now wisely convinced that this wheeze is played out. 1906 Daily Chron. 30 Aug. 2/6 Someone gave the defendant the wheeze. 1910 Dundee Adv. 2 July 6 The old wheeze about one touch of nature making the whole world kin. |
▪ II. wheeze, v.
(hwiːz)
Forms: 5 whese, 6 whiese, wease, 6–8 whease, wheese, 6–9 wheaze, 8 wheez, 7– wheeze.
[prob. a. ON. hvæsa to hiss (MSw., Sw. hväsa, Da. hvæse). (There is no connexion with OE. hwósan, 3rd pers. pres. ind. hwést, pa. tense hwéos to cough, dial. hoose.)]
1. intr. To breathe hard with a whistling sound from dryness or obstruction in the throat, as in asthma.
| c 1460 Towneley Myst. xvi. 472, I lagh that I whese. 1538, etc. [see wheezing vbl. n. and ppl. a.]. c 1611 Chapman Iliad xv. 222 Not stretcht upon his bed, Nor wheasing with a stopt-up spirit. 1648 Winyard Mids.-Moon 6 Hee'l shortly be a Baptist without a voice, and wheases already, as if he fed on nothing but Locusts and Grashoppers. 1679 Dryden Troil. & Cress. i. i, Tickling his spleen, and laughing till he wheeze. 1684 Southerne Disappointm. ii. i, I must laugh at him; not sooth him in his vanity, nor tickle him, till he wheeze. 1697 R. Pierce Bath Mem. ii. ii. 278 She..wheesed, as they vulgarly term it here, when the Windpipe makes a Noise in Breathing. 1809 W. Irving Knickerb. vii. ix, Wheezing as he went with corpulency and terror. 1869 Trollope He knew, etc. li. (1878) 281 ‘I'm not a bit afraid to die’, said the old woman, wheezing. 1875 G. J. Whyte-Melville Katerfelto xiv, He chatted, he chuckled, he coughed and wheezed, and told his stories. |
b. transf. To make a similar sound.
| 1854 G. W. Curtis Potiphar Papers iv. (1866) 127 That elegant youth has pumped life dry, and now the pump only wheezes. 1895 S. Crane Red Badge v, Like a firework... It wheezed and banged with a mighty power. |
2. trans. To utter with a sound of wheezing.
| 1849 Lever Con Cregan xiv, ‘If you'll look in that glass yonder, which is opposite the mirror, you'll soon see!’ wheezed out the old man, maliciously. 1880 P. Ludlow Nick Hardy at Coll. vi, A hand-organ grinder..began to wheeze forth the entrancing strains of ‘Old Dog Tray’. 1905 A. T. Sheppard Red Cravat iii. x. 362 A barrack clock, wheezing out the hour. 1905 F. Young Sands Pleas. ii. vii, Listening to the strain of Dies Irae wheezed out on an old harmonium. |
3. Comb., as wheeze-belly used attrib.
| 1728 Vanbr. & Cibber Prov. Husb. i. i, We were in hopes to ha' come Yesterday, an' it had no' been that th' owld Wheaze-belly Horse tyr'd. |
▪ III. wheeze
obs. form of weese, to ooze.