Wend, n.
(wɛnd)
Also Vend; 8 Winde.
[ad. G. Wende, Winde (pl. Wenden, Winden = Da. Vender, ON. Vindr, OHG. Winida, OE. Winedas, Weonod-, med.L. Venedi, Veneti), of doubtful origin.]
1. A member of the Slavonic race now inhabiting Lusatia in the east of Saxony, but formerly extending over Northern Germany; a Sorb.
| 1786 tr. J. R. Forster's Hist. Voy. North 101 note, The Vandals mentioned here, are indubitably the Wends, or that tribe of the Sclavonians which opposed the Moguls and the Tartars. 1788 Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) II. 700/1 (Austria), The Windes, who are mixed with the Germans in these countries. 1830 Encycl. Metrop. XXI. 340 The Vends are a well-made, strong, courageous, and industrious people. 1843 Penny Cycl. XXVI. 206/1 The language of the Vends..dates its first literature from the Reformation. 1861 Pearson Early & Mid. Ages 155 Canute was still unable to subdue the Wends, who..made the Baltic a Slavonian lake. 1886 Baring-Gould Germany xliii. 264 Henry I. had created the Margravate of Brandenburg as a bulwark against the heathen Wends, who lived on the Baltic. |
2. Southern Wends: (see quot.).
| 1822 Encycl. Brit. Suppl. V. 242 In 640, the Sclavonians took possession of Illyria,..and they still retain it, under the names of Servians, Croatians, and Southern Wends. Ibid., The southern Wends..are now mixed with Germans in Carniola, Carinthia, and Lower Stiria. |