▪ I. white, n.1
(hwaɪt)
Forms: see white a.
[Various absolute uses of white a. Cf. L. album, F. blanc blank n.]
1. The translucent viscous fluid surrounding the yolk of an egg, which becomes white when coagulated; = albumen 1. Usually in full, the white of an egg (or, as a substance, white or the white of egg), pl. whites of eggs.
| c 1000 Sax. Leechd. II. 342 Ᵹedo æᵹes hwit to. c 1000 ælfric Hom. I. 40 On anum æᵹe..þæt hwite ne bið ᵹemenged to ðam ᵹeolcan. a 1300 Fragm. Pop. Sci. (Wright) 240 As the white goth aboute the ȝolke. 14.. Stockholm Med. MS. i. 432 in Anglia XVIII. 306 With eyes qwytys do cleryn es clene. c 1420 Liber Cocorum (1862) 24 Take whyȝte of eyren harde soþun. a 1425 tr. Arderne's Treat. Fistula, etc. 30 Putte þerto als miche of whites of eiren, wele y-bette and scomed. 1528 Paynell Salerne's Regim. (1540) 20 b, The yolke is temperately hotte; The whyte is colde and clammye. 1535 Coverdale Job vi. 6 What taist hath y⊇ whyte within the yoke an egg? 1605 Shakes. Lear iii. vii. 106 (Qo.) Ile fetch some flaxe and whites of egges to apply to his bleeding face. 1629 Z. Boyd Last Battell 701 Like a squissed egge, whose yolke is mingled with its white. 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1862) II. i. vi. 462 A mucus..like the white of an egg. 1883 Hardwich's Photogr. Chem. (ed. 9) 31 The white of egg, which is a very pure form of Albumen. |
2. The white part (sclerotic coat) of the eyeball, surrounding the coloured iris. Usually in full,
the white of the eye,
pl. the whites of the eyes.
Often in
to turn up the whites of one's eyes and similar phrases (usually, in affected devotion, but also in death, in astonishment, horror, etc.).
| c 1400 Lanfranc's Cirurg. 19 A watir þat comeþ bitwene þe white of þe iȝen & þe appil. c 1425 Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 634/5 Hec albugo, wyte of the hee. 1448–9 J. Metham Amoryus & Cl. 1739 Amoryus vpward had turnyd the qwyght Off hys eyn:..qwan sche sey hym ded Her chekys sche gan tere. c 1480 Henryson Fox, Wolf, & Cadger 103 (Harl. MS.) The quhite he turnit vp of his ene tway. 1523 Fitzherb. Husb. §55 If he [sc. a sheep]..haue reed stryndes in the white of the eye, than he is sounde. 1594 Nashe Terrors Nt. Wks. (Grosart) III. 280 Enthronizing graue zeale and religion on the eleuated whites of their eyes. a 1600 Grim the Collier of Croydon iii, He, poor Heart, no sooner heard my newes, But turns me up his Whites, and falls flat down. 1601 Holland Pliny xi. xxxvii. I. 334 The ball or apple in the middest [of the eye] is ordinarily of another colour than the white about it. 1657 Heylin Ecclesia Vind. 349 Lifting up both his hands, and whites to heaven. 1725 Bradley's Fam. Dict. s.v. Signs of Sickness, When a Sick Horse turns up the Whites of his Eyes above, you may conclude that he is in Pain. 1771 Smollett Humph. Cl. 10 June, Mrs. Tabitha..threw up the whites of her eyes, as if in the act of ejaculation. 1796 Wolcot (P. Pindar) Sat. Wks. 1812 III. 409 Flimsy logic to surprise And raise the whites of Country Members' eyes. 1858 O. W. Holmes Aut. Breakf.-t. xi. 108 The Professor showed the whites of his eyes devoutly. 1889 Kipling Ball. East & West 28 And when he could spy the white of her [sc. the mare's] eye, he made the pistol crack. |
| Phr. [Cf. black a. 12.] 1796 Grose's Dict. Vulgar T. (ed. 3) s.v. Black Eye, He cannot say black is the white of my eye; he cannot point out a blot in my character. 182. G. Smeaton Doings in London 85 As Mother Cole said.., ‘no one could say black was the white of her Eye’. |
3. The white or light-coloured part of some substance or structure, as flesh, wood, etc.
| c 1430 Two Cookery-bks. 14 Take þe Whyte of the lekys. c 1475 Pict. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 793/11 Hoc mulsum, the wyte of botyr. 1552 Huloet s.v. Oister, The white vnder the fysh cleauynge to the shell. 1665 Phil. Trans. I. 118 White..like the white of a Custard. a 1756 E. Haywood New Present (1771) 159 Mince..the white of a chicken. 1815 J. Smith Panorama Sci. & Art I. 95 The wood next the bark of a tree, called the white, or alburnum. 1854 A. E. Baker Northampt. Gloss., White, a name given by butchers to that piece of beef which joins the round: i.e. the flank. |
† 4. A white spot or mark.
Obs.| 1551 Knaresb. Wills (Surtees) I. 59 One oxe stirke with a whitte in his forehede. 1585 Higins Junius' Nomencl. 38/1 Exortus,..the white growing in the naile. 1623 Cockeram iii, Selenite, a stone wherein is a white, that decreaseth and encreaseth as the Moone groweth. 1687 Lond. Gaz. No. 2280 A bay Nag..a white in one of his Eyes. |
5. Archery.
a. The white target usually placed on the butt.
arch. or
Hist.| [1456, a 1533: see 6.] 1577 Hellowes Gueuara's Chron. 467 They behaued themselues no more nor no lesse with the Germaines, then an archer with a white at a Butt. 1583 Greene Mamillia 16 b, When the string is broken, it is hard to hit the white. 1618 Bolton Florus iii. viii. (1636) 195 A Boy gets no morsell at his Mothers hands, but that of which she makes a white, and which himselfe must hit. 1654 Gataker Disc. Apol. 39 An Archer,..when he hath hit the white or cloven the peg. 1714 E. Ward Field-Spy 13, I turn'd my Head to see the doughty Knight Stand ready drawn to hit the distant White. 1831 Scott Cast. Dang. viii, A good archer..who..seldom missed a handsbreadth of the white. 1843 Lytton Last Bar. i. i, No marksman had hit the white. |
b. In modern practice, a circular band of white on the target, or each of two such bands (
inner white and
outer white); hence, a shot that hits this white.
| 1687 in Gent. Mag. (1832) CII. i. 600/2 The third circumference, being usually knowne..by the name of the inner white... The fifth circle, being white, and usually called..the outer-white. 1865 Archer's Reg. 25 Ladies' Prizes... Miss Betham (less 113 for blacks and whites), 558. |
6. fig. (or in
fig. context). Now
rare or
Obs.| 1456 Sir G. Haye Gov. Princes Wks. (S.T.S.) II. 149 He that tuichis nerest the quhite and best gais nere the merche. a 1533 Ld. Berners Gold. Bk. M. Aurel. (1546) D ii, The life of the prince is but a whyte, for al other to shote at. 1580 Lyly Euphues (Arb.) 407 If the eye of man be the arrow, and beautie the white. 1596 Shakes. Tam. Shr. v. ii. 186 'Twas I wonne the wager, though you hit the white. 1597 Breton Auspicante Iehoua Wks. (Grosart) II. 11/1 Bee Thou..the note of my comfort, the white of my loue, and the light of my lyfe. 1656 Cowley Pindar. Odes, 2nd Olympique x, Let Agrigentum be the But, And Theron be the White. 1698 Norris Pract. Disc. (1707) IV. 166 So the subject of the following Discourse may be the more distinct, and we may have a clearer White for our mark. 1862 B. Taylor At Home & Abr. Ser. ii. 411 His [sc. Browning's] faculty of hitting the target of expression full in the white, by a single arrowy word. 1864 Lowell Fireside Trav. 294 Byron hit the white, which he often shot very wide of.., when he called Rome ‘my country’. |
7. a. Printing. The blank space in certain letters or types; a space left blank between words or lines (
= white line 2).
| 1594 Plat Jewell-ho. iii. 42 If the whites of certaine letters bee made of one equall bignesse with the o. 1683 Moxon Mech. Exerc., Printing xxii. ¶4 In Marginal Notes..the White between Words is often..greater than between Line and Line. 1808 Stowe Printers' Gram. 163 To a solid page, two leads make the usual white after the head. 1885 Lock Workshop Rec. iv. 213/1 (Electro-typing) It will be found that the ‘whites’ have been almost sufficiently raised. |
b. Drawing, etc.
pl. White or blank parts.
| 1892 Photogr. Ann. II. 421 If a plate is over-exposed the image will come up quickly, the whites will be muddy, and the blacks lacking in richness. 1894 Daily News 26 June 6/5 The Horses of Rhesus..an ambitious picture of large size painted by Mr. Harington Bird, A.R.C.A.,..the scheme of whites appears to be well managed. |
8. White cloth or textile fabric: applied
spec., with or without defining word, to various particular kinds; often in
pl.| 1297 R. Glouc. (Rolls) 11923 Cope & oþer cloþes, hii lete make of wit. 1466 Paston Lett. II. 266 For xxiiii. yerdes of brod wythtys for gowns. 1503 Privy Purse Exp. Eliz. York (1830) 104 For v yerdes of Streyt white. 1594 Norden Spec. Brit., Essex (Camden) 9 Cogshull, wher are made the best whites in Englande. 1621 Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. 45/1 Exceptis mantelliis lie plaidis et lie Galloway quhyte. 1742 De Foe's Tour Gt. Brit. (ed. 3) III. 134 Cloth in Imitation of Gloucester Whites. 1754 Pococke Trav. (Camden) II. 135 They..make..cloths called Salisbury whites for the Turkey trade. |
9. a. White clothing, apparel, or array: usually in
phr. in white.
| [c 1000 Sax. Leechd. III. 198 Hwite oððe beorhte hine ᵹescrydan wynsumnysse ᵹetacnað.] a 1300 Cursor M. 18772 Bi-side þam stode tua men in quite. 1387 Trevisa Higden (Rolls) IV. 321 Whan Pilatus sente Iesus i-cloþed in white to Herodes. c 1425 Cast. Persev. in Macro Plays 76 Þe iiij dowteris schul be clad in mentelys; Merci in wyth, Rythwysnesse in red [etc.]. a 1548 Hall Chron., Hen. VIII 228 On the Assencion day folowyng, the kyng ware whyte for mournyng. 1680 C. Nesse Ch. Hist. 272 Having decked her self with the White of Simplicity. 1768 Goldsm. Good-n. Man iv, It's the worst luck in the world [to be married] in anything but white. 1815 Ann. Reg., Chron. 49/2 The pall was supported by six young females attired in white. 1859 Tennyson Elaine 1152 She herself in white. |
b. pl. White garments or vestments: chiefly in specific uses,
esp. (
a) surplices worn by clergymen, choristers, etc. (now chiefly
Hist.); (
b) white trousers or breeches; (
c) white clothes worn for sport (
esp. Cricket and Lawn Tennis).
| 1622 S. Ward Life of Faith in Death 124 If we throughly beleeued..this to bee the state of our..dead friends,..could we..mourne for them in blacks, whiles they are in whites? 1633 Chas. I in Bibliotheca Regia (1659) 122 That the Dean of our Chapel..come..thither to Prayers upon Sundaies..in his Whites. 1780 A. Young Tour Irel. I. 283 The girls..in their striped linens and whites. 1818 Lady Morgan Autobiogr. (1859) 184 His tight whites and tight silk stockings showed his colossal legs..to great advantage. 1828 Bp. A. Jolly Sunday Services (1848) 220 [The newly baptized] appeared at church..in their whites. 1840 Thackeray Barber Cox Sept., I felt myself suddenly jerked by the waistband of my whites. 1840 J. T. J. Hewlett P. Priggins xiv, Having his immaculate whites spotted and splashed by the spirts of Stephen, who..pulled stroke. 1882 ‘Edna Lyall’ Donovan vi, They say the [choir-]boys in their whites is very attractive. 1922 E. Raymond Tell England ii. iv. 207 All honest boys, we know, fancy themselves in their whites. 1974 K. Millett Flying (1975) i. 101 Rich playing championship tennis..in his whites. 1978 G. McDonald Fletch's Fortune (1979) xiv. 96 Stop at the pro shop... We'll fix you up with a racket and balls... Have whites? |
† c. A white badge.
Obs.| 1647 in Clarendon's State Papers (1773) II. App. p. xlii, Perceiving Lilburne's regiment..to appear..with Whites in their hats. 1651 Lanc. Tracts Civil War (Chetham Soc.) 307 The enemies word was ‘Iesu’, and their signal a White about their Arme. |
d. pl. White articles of washing.
| 1962 Which? Aug. 231/2 The programme you choose for the washing you want to do (‘whites’, for example, or ‘delicate fabrics’ are possible settings on both machines) automatically determines washing and spin drying times. 1979 A. Price Tomorrow's Ghost xiii. 229 It used to be right dirty rain... Woman couldn't put her whites out..when it was raining. |
10. a. † Silver money, ‘silver’ collectively, as distinguished from
red or
yellow = gold (
obs.); also (with
pl.) a silver coin (
slang). Also (
sing.) in general sense, money (
slang).
| c 1374 Chaucer Troylus iii. 1384 They shul for-go þe white and eke þe rede. 1390 [see red n. 3 a]. c 1676 Roxb. Ball. (1889) VI. 15 A sawcy fellow! Come to me without his white and yellow. 1823 ‘Jon Bee’ Dict. Turf 194 Whites, in the language of smashers, ‘small whites’ are shillings, ‘large whites’ half-crowns. 1903 A. M. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise viii. 204 Again and again the needy one implored his obdurate chum to shake out at least a deuce of whites. 1960 [see cabbage n.1 1 e]. |
b. = blank n. 1.
Hist.| 1716 M. Davies Athen. Brit. III. 79 'Twas made Felony..to pay or receive a certain base Coyn, call'd Blank or Whites. 1877 Stevenson New Arab. Nts., Lodging for Nt., Two of the small coins that went by the name of whites. |
11. = white wine.
| c 1386 [see red n. 3 b]. 1610 T. Cocks Diary (1901) 95 A quarte of white, to make my skurvye-grasse drincke. c 1640 Capt. Underwit iv. i. in Bullen O. Pl. II. 375 The Stillyards Reanish wine and Divells white. 1720 E. Ward Delights of Bottle 37 Where ev'ry one that's low in Spirits, May be reliev'd by Whites or Clarets. 1842 [see red n. 3 b]. 1961 [see red n.1 5 b]. 1972 ‘W. Haggard’ Protectors ix. 111 He..had drunk most of a bottle of wine. He had discovered the local whites with pleasure. 1978 T. L. Smith Money War iii. 182 He would have the filet of sole amandine... He couldn't quite make up his mind which of the wonderful whites to choose to go with it. |
12. An animal of a species, breed, or variety distinguished by white colour; a white horse (
obs.), butterfly, pigeon, pig, dog, cat, etc. (Chiefly as a fanciers' abbreviation.)
| 1530 Palsgr. 288/2 White, a horse of white colour, cheual blanc, liart. 1834 Proc. Berw. Nat. Club I. No. 2. 51 This fish I consider to be the S. albus of Fleming, the Herling..of the Scotch side of the Solway Frith,..the White or Phinnock of Pennant. 1857 Gosse Omphalos xi. 307 We never find the egg of the Peacock Butterfly adhering to the leaf of a cabbage, nor that of the Garden White to the leaf of a nettle. 1879 L. Wright Pigeon Keeper 96 Whites are..usually bred together. 1898 Daily News 5 Dec. 8/5 Pigs.., middle whites and large whites. 1907 R. Leighton's New Bk. Dog 429 The litter will consist of some whole-coloured blacks, and some whole-coloured whites. |
13. A white man; a person of a race distinguished by light complexion: see
white a. 4.
poor whites = ‘poor white folks’ (see
white a. 4); also
sing. and
fig.| 1671 Charante Let. conc. Customs Tafiletta 10 After him raigned his Brother Muley Elwaly, who was a White, his Mother a Spanish Moor. 1726 Adv. Capt. R. Boyle (1744) 155 There may be about 20000 Whites (or I should say Portuguese, for they are none of the whitest,) and about treble that Number of Slaves. 1819 W. Faux Jrnl. 28 July in Memorable Days in Amer. (1823) 118 The poor white, or white poor, in Maryland,..scarcely ever work. 1826 J. F. Cooper Last of Mohicans xiv, Red-skins and whites. 1833 in Maryland Hist. Mag. (1918) XIII. 338 The poor whites at the South are not as well off in their physical condition as the slaves, and hardly as respectable. 1879 Sir G. Campbell White & Black 163 A large number of very inferior whites, known as ‘mean whites’, ‘white trash’, and so on. 1886 J. A. Froude Oceana xviii. 326 When he dies, the Maori and the poor whites in New Zealand will have lost their truest friend. 1888 W. B. Churchward Blackbirding 7 Having been longer in Samoa than any live white in the place. 1896 R. Wallace Farming Industries of Cape Colony 406 The so-called ‘poor whites’ are chiefly the descendants of French protestant refugees, and, in some districts, of early Dutch settlers. 1934 A. N. J. Den Hollander in W. T. Couch Culture in South xx. 414 In discriminating southern speech, it was not used to include all white persons who were poor... The ‘poor-whites’ were those who were both poor and conspicuously lacking in the common social virtues and especially fell short of the standard in certain economic qualities. 1958 L. van der Post Lost World Kalahari iii. 56 All who worked for my grandfather no matter whether Griqua, Hottentot,..Cape-coloured or poor white, were ultimately held in equal affection. 1974 ‘J. le Carré’ Tinker Tailor i. 9 Jim Prideaux was a poor white of the teaching community. |
14. † (
a) A white square on a chessboard. (
b) with
the: Either of the white balls in billiards; also, the white ball in pool.
| c 1440 Gesta Rom. xxi, Þe quene, that goth fro blak to blak, or fro white to white. 1562 J. Rowbotham Cheasts A v b, Because of his [sc. the knight's] marching forth, whiche is made from three into three places, to witte, from whyte into blacke, and from black into whyte. 1614 A. Saul Chesse-play To Rdr., The Bishop blacke in blacke must march..For in the white he may not come. 1750 ‘Philidor’ Chess Anal. (1773) 7 note, When your Bishop runs upon White, you must strive to put your Pawn always upon Black. 1856 ‘Crawley’ Billiards (1858) 29, I attempted a difficult cannon off the white. 1873 Bennett & ‘Cavendish’ Billiards 213 The white will travel slowly on to the spot-white. 1981 P. Quinn Tackle Pool ii. 25 If the white is at point A it must be played into the black almost full ball. |
15. a. (
a) Applied variously to any white body or substance: see
quots.| 1540 Palsgr. Acolastus ii. iii. L iij b, That..thou mayste haue a place worthy for the in our whyte... (Lyke as the pretours of Rome dyd set those mens names in a table hyghest, whose causes shulde first be pleaded,..whiche table was called Album prætoris .i. the whyte or table of the pretour). 1578 Lyte Dodoens iii. lxxi. 413 Hauing at their extremities..certayne whites fashioned like gripes, or clawes. 1608 Topsell Serpents 237 Like as the windes driue whites from top of thistle Cardus. 1896 Kipling Seven Seas, Rhyme Three Sealers, They groped through the whirling white [i.e. mist]. |
† (
b)
to spit white: to eject frothy-white sputum from a dry mouth. (
Cf. to spit sixpences s.v. sixpence 2 d.)
Obs.| [1594 Lyly Mother Bombie iii. ii, Ri...We dyd but a little parboile our liuers, they haue sod theyrs in sacke these fortie yeeres. Hal. That makes them spit white broth as they doo.] |
| 1597 Shakes. 2 Hen. IV, i. ii. 237 If it bee a hot day, if I brandish any thing but my Bottle, would I might neuer spit white againe. 1622 Massinger & Dekker Virg. Mart. iii. iii, Had I bin a Pagan stil, I could not haue spit white for want of drinke. |
b. As a specific name (chiefly in
pl.) for various manufactured articles and products of a white colour;
e.g. pins, sugar, flour, etc.
| ? 1690 Pinmakers' Case in oppos. to Killigrew's Bill (Broadside, Brit. Mus.), Double long whites alias Calkins. 1826 Haberdasher's Guide 19 Short Whites, a smaller pin. 1844 H. Stephens Bk. Farm II. 14 The same rule of storing a quantity..is followed in regard to them as with the whites [sc. turnips]. 1883 N. D. Davis Cavaliers & Roundh. in Barbados 34 Not only were muscovadoes made, but the manufacture of ‘whites’ was accomplished. 1896 Daily News 8 Dec. 11/5 At a meeting of the London Flour Millers' Association,..the following prices were fixed:—Town households, 28s.; whites, 31s. |
c. A white diamond.
| 1878 [see off colour, off-colour phr. and a. 2]. 1895 [see bywater]. 1928 [see bye n. 3]. 1972 V. Canning Rainbird Pattern xi. 227 The diamonds were genuine,..blue whites, fine whites and whites. 1973 Times 25 Aug. 17/3 The (more or less) accepted English classes run thus in descending order: (1) finest fine white or river alias blue-white; (2) fine white; (3) commercial white. |
d. A white ostrich-feather.
| 1881 A. Douglass Ostrich Farming S. Afr. xiii. 81 The cocks' quill feathers..he will..sort first... Prime whites, first whites, second whites, tipped whites. 1890 A. Martin Home Life on Ostrich Farm vi. 103 A large and magnificent bunch of wing-feathers, the finest and longest of ‘prime whites’. |
e. slang. Morphine.
Cf. white stuff s.v. white a. 11 e.
| 1914 Jackson & Hellyer Vocab. Criminal Slang 87 White, noun, current amongst morphine habitues. Morphine. Example: ‘How many times a day are you shooting the white?’ 1977 N. Adam Triplehip Cracksman iii. 32 By 1965 they were growing poppies for half the world's white. |
f. White bread; a white loaf.
colloq.| 1960 Wentworth & Flexner Dict. Amer. Slang 576/1 White, white bread. 1974 ‘A. Gilbert’ Nice Little Killing iv. 55 Last of all came the baker... Leave a small white to be on the safe side. 1977 D. E. Westlake Nobody's Perfect 45 A luncheon-loaf sandwich on white with mayo in his left hand. 1978 R. Westall Devil on Road vi. 35, I got thick-sliced white and corned-beef. |
g. An amphetamine tablet.
slang.| 1967 [see pill n.2 1 d]. 1969 Observer 21 Dec. 1/1 The street pusher with his ‘wanna score some whites (Benzedrine)? Dollar a roll.’ 1972 H. C. Rae Shooting Gallery i. 19 He had anticipated a rash of arrests for possession of brown drugs and amphetamines—but not this, not a straight leap into the lethal whites. |
16. pl. A popular name for leucorrhœa or ‘white flux’ (
white a. 11 e).
| 1572 J. Jones Bathes Buckstones 4 b, Such as haue their whites too abundant. 1579 Langham Gard. Health 147 Barren women, and such as are troubled with the whites. 1683 Digby Chym. Secr. ii. 264 It cures..the Whites in Women. 1758 J. S. tr. Le Dran's Observ. Surg. (1771) Dict. Cc 2, Leucorhæ, the Fluor Albus, or Whites in Women. 1822–9 Good Study Med. V. 68 Among novices there is some difficulty in distinguishing the discharge of whites from that of blenorrhœa. |
17. a. White colour or hue; white coloration or appearance; whiteness. Sometimes semi-concr.
| c 1000 in Anglia I. 285 Hwit asolað, nitor squalescit. a 1225 [see black n. 1]. c 1315 Shoreham vii. 544 Swyþe fayr þyng hys þat wyte, And þer by-syde blak..; Þe wyte hyt þe uayrer makeþ. 1390 Gower Conf. II. 46 In kertles and in Copes riche Thei weren clothed, alle liche, Departed evene of whyt and blew. c 1400 Destr. Troy 10970 All þaire colouris..were of cleane white. a 1461 Pol. Poems (Rolls) II. 241 Wyghte is wyghte, ȝyf yt [ys] leyd to blake. a 1548 Hall Chron., Hen. VI 138 So depe a Snowe, that all the ground was covered with white. 1592 Shakes. Ven. & Ad. 398 Teaching the sheets a whiter hew then white. 1592 G. Harvey Four Lett. Sonn. xi. Wks. (Grosart) I. 244 That whitest white on Earth. 1704 Newton Optics (1721) 133 Before I told him what the Colours were... I asked him, Which of the two Whites were the best? 1734 Poor Robin Feb. A 6, It fills the Ditch with either black or white [= rain or snow]. 1777 Robertson Hist. Amer. iv. I. 301 Their skin is covered with a fine hairy down of a chalky white. 1821 Craig Lect. Drawing, etc. iii. 175 We must take black and white into our list, as colours with the painter though not with the optician. 1847 W. C. L. Martin Ox 61/1 A broad line of white along the back. 1859 Tennyson Vivien 141 The curl'd white of the coming wave. 1868 W. B. Marriott Vest. Christ. Introd. p. xvii, In the ancient world..white was regarded as the colour..appropriate to things divine. |
b. Whiteness or fairness of complexion.
In first
quot. perh. confused with
wlite.
| a 1225 Ancr. R. 56 Nu cumeð forð a feble mon,..& wule iseon ȝunge ancren, & loken..hu hire hwite like him, þet naueð nout hire leor uorbernd iðe sunne. Ibid. 98 ‘Þi stefne is me swete, & ti hwite schene.’.. ‘vox tua dulcis, & facies tua decora.’ 14.. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 626 White of þe face, albucies. 1578 H. Wotton Courtlie Controv. 225 The princesse blushing with roseall shame whyche beautified hir naturall white. 1697 Dryden æneis xii. 102 Varying her Cheeks by Turns, with white and red. 1816 Byron Parisina x, The smoothest white That e'er did softest kiss invite. |
c. fig. (or in
fig. context) as a symbol of purity, goodness, truth, joy, etc.
| [c 1394 P. Pl. Crede 694 Whijt..bytokneþ clennes in soule.] 1637 Rutherford Let. to Ld. Craighall 10 Aug., Some few years will bring us all out in our black's and white's before our Judge. 1649 T. Ford Lusus Fort. 46 Our life is chequerd with the whites of pleasure and delight, and the blacks of sorrow and pain. 1680 C. Nesse Ch. Hist. 110 God Chequered his Providences..with the Black of Misery, and with the White of Mercy. 1818 Keats Endym. iii. 402, I loved her to the very white of truth. |
d. Proverbial
phr. to call white black,
to turn white into black (and vice versa).
Cf. white a. 1 d.
| 1534 More Comf. agst. Trib. i. x. (1553) B viij b, More coumfort may he haue in his heart, that where whyte is called blacke..abydeth by the trueth. 1672 W. Walker Parœm. 33 They turn black into white, and white into black. Nigra in candida vertunt, Juv. 1829 Southey All for Love ix. xxix, To prove..That right is wrong, and wrong is right, And white is black, and black is white. |
e. Phr.
white-on-white, used
attrib. to designate articles made of white cloth with a white woven-in design; also
fig.| 1955 W. Gaddis Recognitions ii. vii. 572 A bow tie of propeller proportions stood out over extra-length collar bills on a white-on-white shirt. 1958 J. Blish Case of Conscience xi. 113 ‘Why don't you give me a chance?’ Michelis said raggedly. Then he turned white-on-white. 1976 A. Goldman in D. Villiers Next Year in Jerusalem 221 Perhaps it was radio..that forced American humor in the thirties to enter a phase of white-on-white neutrality. 1978 Detroit Free Press 5 Mar. d9/2 The Smithsonian Institution has several white-on-white quilts done in this manner. |
18. a. A white pigment; often with defining word denoting a particular kind, as
Chinese,
flake,
Paris,
pearl,
Spanish,
Venice white, etc.: see these words.
| 1546 [see Spanish a. 7]. 1650 E. Norgate Miniatura (1919) 93 Whyte lead ground with Nutt oyle maketh a perfect Whyte. 1731 Art of Drawing & Paint. 20 These Colours..to shade the Whites. 1847 Smeaton Builder's Man. 139 The first white that was discovered..was extracted from the calx of lead. 1859 Gullick & Timbs Painting 293 The terrene whites, from their alkaline nature, are injurious to many colours in water. |
b. Her. Used by some modern writers for a white tincture reckoned among the furs, as distinct from
argent.
| 1777 Porny Her. (ed. 3) 25 White, the natural colour of a little beast called Ermine,..is only to be termed so, when it is used for the doubling of Mantles. |
19. a. A designation for a member of any one of certain political parties (from the colour of the badge worn,
cf. white a. 6 b);
esp. a member of one of the two factions into which the Guelphs split (see
black n. 8 a), or a Spanish Legitimist. Now
usu., a member of any of various counter-revolutionary or strongly conservative parties.
| 1680 C. Nesse Ch. Hist. 428 The Guelphs.. and the Gibellines,..the Black and the White (as those Two Factions were called). 1802, etc. [see black n. 8]. 1849 J. A. Carlyle tr. Dante's Inf. 64 note, Florence was divided by two factions, the Neri and Bianchi, or Blacks and Whites. 1889 Daily News 4 Oct. 5/1 A true white—which is..of an infinitely more intense shade of Conservatism than the truest blue. 1892 Nation (N.Y.) 8 Sept. 177/1 The party of the Whites of Spain had been thrown into disorder. 1918 Times 9 Apr., Germany promised..to supply the Whites [of Finland] with arms and food. 1942 ‘A. Bridge’ Frontier Passage i. 6 There were a few Whites in Madrid..and..they had a pretty thin time of it. 1954 B. & R. North tr. M. Duverger's Pol. Parties ii. i. 216 In small French villages public opinion spontaneously distinguishes between ‘Whites’ and ‘Reds’, ‘clerical’ and ‘anti-clerical’. 1965 M. Michael tr. Myrdal's Rep. from Chinese Village (1967) iv. 186, I joined the Young Pioneers. There we had classes about which districts were red and liberated and which were held by the Whites or the Japanese. |
b. spec. An opponent of the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War (1918–21).
| 1921 F. McCullagh Prisoner of Reds iii. 26 A few miles off, on the west, was a large force of whites, which intended to advance on Krasnoyarsk that night. 1924 E. G. Jellicoe Playing the Game xiii. 224 Expeditionary Armies of Britain and the United States, invaded Northern Russia..in order to link up with Russian Whites against Russian Bolsheviks. 1944 M. Laski Love on Supertax ix. 86 She is Russian... Her parents were Whites who fled to Paris just before the October Revolution. 1950 E. H. Carr Bolshevik Revolution I. 325 In all these regions the ultimate effect of the civil war waged by the ‘whites’ with foreign backing had been to consolidate the prestige..of the Russian Soviet Government. 1964 L. Deighton Funeral in Berlin 318 Chekist operators... Originally these were an anti-sabotage, anti-revolutionary force..during the civil war..empowered to..execute Whites, or Reds who were getting a little bleached. 1976 [see red n.1 6 b]. |
20. Short for
white squadron: see
white a. 11 e.
| [16.. in Macgeorge Flags (1881) 69 The Lord Harvey was Rear Admirall..bearing..a white flag in the maine topp, and was Admirall of y⊇ squadron of white colours.] |
| 1704 J. Chamberlayne St. Gt. Brit. (ed. 21) 572 Admirals of the Fleet..White, Sir Cloudesly Shovel, Admiral. James Wishart, Esq. Vice-Admiral. 1751 Crt. & City Reg. 168 A List of the Admirals of the Royal Navy of Great-Britain... Admirals of the White. c 1815 Jane Austen Persuasion iii, He is rear admiral of the white. |
21. The player who holds the white pieces at chess or any similar game.
| 1750 ‘Philidor’ Chess Analysed (1773) 59, I have no need to go further in this Game, since it is evident that the White must win. 1808 Hoyle's Game of Chess 32 White has the best of the game. 1867 Bohn's Hand-bk. Games 460 (Draughts) White to move and win. |
22. Phrases.
in black and white: see
black a. 15 b, c.
in the white: said of cloth in an undyed state; hence of manufactured articles generally in an unfinished state. (
Cf. quot. 1846 in
white a. 2.)
† white and black, name of some game.
| 1555 Act 2 & 3 Phil. & Mary c. 9 Bowlyng Tenyse Dysyng White & Blacke Making & Marryng, & other unlaufull Games. 1810 Risdon's Surv. Devon p. xxv, The articles..are merely manufactured here, and sent in the white to London, where they are dyed. 1876 F. S. Williams Midl. Railw. 636 Furniture, made in London, but unfinished,—‘in the white’ it is called. 1957 N.Z. Timber Jrnl. Aug. 59/2 In the white, applied to finished furniture ready for polishing or other treatment. 1965 Wireless World July 9 (Advt.), This range includes..ready-assembled cabinets in the white for finish to own requirements. 1968 J. Arnold Shell Bk. Country Crafts 130 Factory-made chairs are often dispatched for later finishing, ‘in the white’ they call it. 1971 Country Life 10 June 1416/2 James Giles..bought consignments of Worcester porcelain in the white for decorating to commission. 1981 Sci. Amer. Oct. 134/3 Violinmakers often say that a violin sounds better in the white than it does after it is varnished. |
23. Comb. white-exceeding a. (
poet.), exceeding or surpassing white, ‘whiter than white’;
white(s)-only a., reserved for white people.
| a 1618 Sylvester Ode to Astræa Wks. (Grosart) II. 50/2 The white-exceeding skin Of thy neck and dimpled chin. 1968 Listener 18 July 86/3 In 1958, the Court of Appeal supported the Musicians' Union in their boycott of a whites-only dance-hall in dear old Wolverhampton. 1971 Sunday Times (Johannesburg) 28 Mar. 1/3 It was a Whites-only compartment. 1971 Guardian 29 Sept. 19/2 In Salisbury [Rhodesia], there are perhaps half a dozen ‘Whites Only’ signs—mainly on public lavatories. 1980 English World-Wide I. i. 55 In the 1950's Nassau's whites-only schools, cinemas, and restaurants were desegregated. |
▪ II. white, a. (
hwaɪt)
Forms: 1–3
hwit, (1
huit, 3
ȝwit,
ȝwijȝt), 3– 4
wit,
wyt, 3–6 (7–9
dial.)
whit, (4
whijt,
whiȝt(e,
huyt,
with,
wythe,
wyht,
quiht,
quitte), 4–5
wyte,
quyt(e,
quite, (
wyth), 4–6
qwyt(e,
Sc. quhit, 4, 5–7
Sc. quhite, 4–6, 7
Sc. whyt,
whyte, 4–8
Sc. quhyt, (5
hwyte,
whiyt,
whyȝte,
why(g)th(e,
wyghte,
wytht,
wytte,
qwhyt(t)e,
qwhite,
qwhyet,
qwyght,
Sc. qwhit), 5–6
whitt(e, (
whight,
whyght(e,
Sc. quhytt), 5–7
Sc. quhyte, 6
whytt(e, (
whith,
whyth,
whiet,
wyet,
wyȝht,
wight,
whait,
weit,
weyte,
Sc. vhyt,
quhet), 6–7
wheat, 3–
white.
Comp. whiter (
ˈhwaɪtə(r)), sup.
whitest (
ˈhwaɪtɪst); also, with shortened vowel, 3
hwittere,
-ore,
-ure, 4–5
quitter, 4–6
whitter, (4
queþer, 5
qwhittar); 5
whyttest.
[OE. hw{iacu}t = OFris., OS. hwît, OHG. (h)wîȥ (MHG. wîȥ, G. weiss), ON. hv{iacu}tr (Sw. vit, Da. hvid), Goth. hweits:—OTeut. *χwītaz. The shortened form
whit (now
dial.) was presumably generalized from the
comp. whitter or from compounds like
whitbred,
whitþorn, where shortening is normal.
The grade χ
wit- is represented by
OFris. hwitt, (M)
Du., (M)
LG. wit (
-tt-):—*χ
wittaz,
prob.:—Indo-eur.
*kwidnos,
*kwitnos, the root of which is found also in
Skr. *{cced}vid (
perf. {cced}i{cced}vinde) to be white,
Lith. szvidùs bright,
Lett. svīst to dawn, and
Skr. *{cced}vit to be bright or white,
{cced}vitrá- whitish, white, Zend
spaeta white,
Lith. szvintù to be bright,
OSl. svĕtŭ light,
svitati to dawn.]
1. Of the colour of snow or milk; having that colour produced by reflection, transmission, or emission of all kinds of light in the proportion in which they exist in the complete visible spectrum, without sensible absorption, being thus fully luminous and devoid of any distinctive hue.
| c 950 Lindisf. Gosp. John xx. 12 Tuoeᵹe engles in huitum ᵹeᵹerelum. c 1000 Ags. Gosp. Matt. v. 36 Þu ne miht ænne locc ᵹedon hwitne oððe blacne. c 1200 Trin. Coll. Hom. 57 Sume bereð clene cloð to watere to blechen him, þat hit beo wit. Ibid. 163 Hire chemise is smal and hwit. c 1250 Gen. & Ex. 2810 In hise bosum he dede his hond, Quit and al unfer he it fond. 1297 R. Glouc. (Rolls) 2786 Tueye grete dragons..Þe on was red þe oþer wyt. a 1300 Cursor M. 17288 + 216 Two aungels..Cled in white clothez. c 1300 Havelok 1144 An hold with couel. 13.. E.E. Allit. P. A. 220 Bornyste quyte was hyr uesture. 1340–70 Alex. & Dind. 719 A swan swiþe whit. c 1380 Wyclif Wks. (1880) 357 Þe oost sacrid, whijt & round. 1423 Jas. I Kingis Q. xlvi, Hir goldin haire and rich atyre..couchit were with perllis quhite. 1471 Caxton Recuyell (Sommer) 701 Myn eyen [are] dimmed with ouermoche lokyng on the whit paper. 1514 Rec. St. Mary at Hill (1904) 20 Oon hole sute of vestymenttes, Whight or Blake. 1541 Test. Ebor. (Surtees) VI. 135 A gowne..the one side blake and the other side whitt. 1556 J. Heywood Spider & F. lx. 5 With wheat tuskes fo[r]mde like a bore. a 1586 Montgomerie Misc. Poems xxv. 1 The tender snow, of granis soft & quhyt [rime delyte]. 1590 Spenser F.Q. ii. iii. 26 She..was yclad..All in a silken Camus lylly whight. a 1650 E. Norgate Miniatura (1919) 52 Insteed of abortive parchment, by some called Gilding Vellum, make use of your pure white velim. 1733 Budgell Bee II. 924 It proving a Maiden Assizes, the Sheriffs, according to Custom, presented the Judges with white Gloves. 1806 Scott Palmer i, The glen is white with the drifted snow. 1833 Tennyson Miller's Dau. 130 The lanes..were white with may. 1860 Tyndall Glac. ii. i. 227 White light..is made up of an infinite number of coloured rays. 1912 C. N. & A. M. Williamson Guests of Hercules xvii, A round white moon that flooded the night with silver. |
b. Of the colour of the hair or beard in old age; also
transf. of the person, white-haired, hoary.
| c 1290 S. Eng. Leg. 265/145 Hire her was hor and swiþe ȝwijȝt, as þei it were wolle. 1390 Gower Conf. I. 111 Here berdes weren hore and whyte. c 1440 Partonope 155 A knyghte, þe wyche hyte Nestor, Wyche for age was whyte and hore. 1448–9 J. Metham Amoryus & Cl. 1027 The qwyght herys Off sapyens. 1596 Shakes. 1 Hen. IV, ii. iv. 514 That hee is olde..his white hayres doe witnesse it. 1684 Bunyan Pilgr. ii. Introd., Old Honest,..With his white hairs treading the Pilgrim's ground. 1724 Ramsay Vision v, His quhyt heid. 1887 F. M. Crawford Saracinesca iii, His white hair and beard bristled about his dark face. |
c. In comparisons usually hyperbolical.
esp. as white as (or whiter than) snow, milk (
cf. snow-white,
milk-white);
as white as lily flower,
glass,
a swan (
cf. swan-white),
whales bone,
flour,
a neap,
wool,
curds, and (in sense 5)
a cloth,
sheet,
ghost.
| c 1000 Ags. Gosp. Matt. xvii. 2 Hys reaf wæron swa hwite swa snaw. c 1200 Vices & Virtues 83 Ðanne wurð ic iclansed of alle mine sennes, and hwittere ðane ani snaw. c 1290 S. Eng. Leg. 85/80 A coluere..so ȝwijt so milk. a 1300 Cursor M. 10380 Ten lambes, quitte als milk. a 1300 K. Horn 15 (Camb.), He was whit so þe flur [Harl. So whit so eny lylye flour]. a 1330 Syr Degarre 15 The kynge had..A doughter as whight as whales bone. c 1330 R. Brunne Chron. Wace (Rolls) 2081 Scheo hadde a mayden childe: Sabren hit highte, as whit as glas. 13.. Seuyn Sages (W.) 78 Faire of chere and white as swan. 1375 Barbour Bruce viii. 232 Hawbrekis, that war quhit as flour. c 1480 Henryson Fox, Wolf & Husb. 165 Quhyte as ane Neip, and round als as ane schell. 1508 Dunbar Gold. Targe 51 A saill, als quhite as blossum vpon spray. 1533 Gau Richt Vay 63 Giff thay be reid as purpur neuertheles yai sal be quhit as wow. 1590 Spenser F.Q. i. i. 4 Vpon a lowly Asse more white then snow, Yet she much whiter. a 1732 Gay Songs, New Song of New Similes xiii, As smooth as glass, as white as curds. 1885 ‘Mrs. Alexander’ At Bay iv, I am as white as driven snow compared to some blackguards. |
d. In allusive or proverbial
phr., chiefly in collocation with
black:
cf. white n. 17 d.
| 1377 Langl. P. Pl. B. x. 436 And wherby wote men whiche is whyte if alle þinge blake were? c 1403 Lydg. Temple of Glas 1250 White is whitter, if it be set bi blak. 1546 J. Heywood Prov. (1867) 56 Were not you as good than to say, the crow is whight. 1581, 1604 [see Blackamoor 1]. 1662 Stillingfl. Orig. Sacræ i. v. §5, I think they have striven if not to make an Ethiopian white, yet an ægyptian to speak truth concerning his own Country. |
e. whiter than white: extremely white;
freq. fig. In
mod. use popularized as an advertising slogan for Persil soap-powder.
| [1592: see white n. 17 a.] a 1924 N.E.D. s.v. White sb. 23, Exceeding or surpassing white, ‘whiter than white’. 1949 D. Smith I capture Castle vii. 95 The strangeness of her face: that look she has of belonging to a whiter-than-white race. 1962 Daily Tel. 28 June 1/3 He is said to have said that the report made out the BBC to be ‘whiter than white’. 1974 ‘A. Garve’ File on Lester vii. 31 Where their leaders are concerned, the masses are puritan—they expect standards of personal behaviour whiter than white. 1979 K. Bonfiglioli After you with Pistol xxii. 180 My knuckles were now Whiter-Than-White. |
f. Sci. and
techn. Applied to (non-optical) radiation,
esp. sound and X-rays, having approximately equal intensities at all the frequencies of its range;
esp. white noise (also
fig.).
This use arises by analogy with the spectral composition of white light.
| 1922 Nature 1 Apr. 414/2 Just as the spectrum of a hot body normally consists of a continuous spectrum of white light, together with certain spectrum lines the wave⁓lengths of which are characteristic of the radiating material, so an element emitting X-rays not only gives out ‘white’ radiation, but superposes its characteristic lines on the general spectrum. 1943 Jrnl. Aeronaut. Sci. X. 129/1 Inside the plane it is different; there all frequencies added together at once are heard, producing a noise which is to sound what white light is to light... That white noise is annoying needs little argument. 1948 Bell Syst. Technical Jrnl. XXVII. 642 If the noise is itself white..the result reduces to the formula proved previously. 1959 Lancet 12 Sept. 342/2 ‘White-sound’ generators, which blind out extraneous noises, are unsatisfactory [for use in perceptual isolation experiments]. 1976 Jrnl. R. Soc. Arts CXXIV. 588/2 The proportion of power converted into the more penetrating ‘bremsstrahlung’—or ‘white’ radiation—is approximately proportional to the atomic number of the target material. 1977 P. B. & J. S. Medawar Life Science i. 14 When the noise signals are so subdued, random and heterogeneous that their pretensions to conveying information are negligible, we may speak of ‘white noise’, e.g. the sound—as of innumerable mice eating Rice Crispies—that sometimes accompanies long-distance telephone calls. 1980 P. Way Icarus ix. 57 Maybe they could listen in, even through the white noise of the running water. 1984 Mail on Sunday (Colour Suppl.) 2 Dec. 6/2 (Advt.), At standard or even very low listening levels, you will never be harassed by hum or white noise. |
2. In looser or wider senses.
a. Of a light or pale colour: applied to things of various indefinite hues approaching white,
esp. dull or pale shades of yellow. (See also following senses, and
white bread,
wine, etc.)
| c 950 Lindisf. Gosp. John iv. 35 Uidete regiones quia albæ sunt..ad messem, ᵹeseað ða lond forðon huito sint ᵹee..to hrippe. c 1300 Havelok 1729 Win hwit and red, ful god plente. a 1400–50 Bk. Curtasye 701 in Babees Bk., A qwyte cuppe of tre. c 1430 Two Cookery-bks. 29 Hwyte Hony or Sugre. 1523–34 Fitzherb. Husb. §13 Sprot-barley hath a flat eare..and the cornes be very great and white. 1626 Bacon Sylva §874 Water of the Sea..looketh Blacker when it is moued, and Whiter when it resteth. 1664 Evelyn Sylva xix. 42 Such [osiers] as are for White-work (as they call it). a 1700 ― Diary 22 Oct. 1685, The canal and fish ponds, the one fed with a white, the other with a black running water. 1769 Falconer Dict. Marine (1780), Cordage blanc, white, or untarred cordage. 1846 Dodd Brit. Manuf. VI. 196 When a rope is to be used in the open air, but under cover, it is left in the ‘white’ state; that is, it is not coated with tar or any other substance. |
(
b)
spec. applied to crops of corn or grain, formerly called
white corn (
cf. corn n.1 3), which turn ‘white’ or light-coloured in ripening, as distinguished from
black and
green crops: see
crop n. 9. Hence
transf. of land or soil adapted for such crops.
| 1523–34 Fitzherb. Husb. §27 The sherers of all maner of whyte corne. 1677 Plot Oxfordsh. 240 If it be of that poorest sort they call white-land, nothing is so proper as ray-grass mixt with Non-such, or Melilot Trefoil. 1780 Young Tour Irel. I. 197 Pease esteemed a refreshment, and enables them to have one or two crops of white corn. 1799 J. Robertson Agric. Perth 451 By the alternate changes of white and green crops. 1805 Forsyth Beauties Scot. II. 66 The soils under tillage are commonly arranged into two kinds;..light and clayey. The former is called turnip or green soil; and the latter, white soil, because it is best adapted for growing oats, wheat, and other white grains. c 1830 Glouc. Farm Rep. 4 in Libr. Usef. Knowl., Husb. III, No white or corn crop should be repeated in too rapid succession. |
b. Of metal, or objects made of metal, of a light grey colour and lustrous appearance.
† Frequent in early use as an epithet of silver; hence
= made or consisting of silver; also (of iron or steel armour) burnished and shining, without colouring or stain. See also
white metal,
money (in 11 c),
rent (in 11 e),
white iron.
Also technically applied to silver ware chased or roughened with the tool, as distinguished from burnished silver.
| c 1000 ælfric Josh. vii. 21 Twahund entsena hwites seolfres. a 1225 Ancr. R. 152 Read gold & hwit seoluer. a 1400–50 Wars Alex. 129 Quadrentis coruen all of quyte siluyre. 1419 Mem. Ripon (Surtees) III. 145 Et in D. de quytnayles empt. eod. temp. 1506 Lincoln Wills (1914) I. 44 A whytepece with a coveryng. 1530 Palsgr. 288/2 White harnesse, blanche armure. 1542 Inv. Royal Wardr. (1815) 72 Quhyt Werk. Item ane greit bassing for feit wesching. a 1627 Middleton, etc. Widow iv. ii, A white thimble that I found i' moon light. 1667 Dryden & Dk. Newc. Sir M. Mar-all v, Hang your white pelf. 1761 Ann. Reg., Chron. 232 One of his majesty's best suits of white armour. 1816 Scott Antiq. xi, Four white shillings and saxpence. 1856 Miller Elem. Chem., Inorg. xv. §674 Tin is a white metal with a tinge of yellow. |
c. Colourless, uncoloured, as glass or other transparent substance.
| c 888 ælfred Boeth. xxxii. §3 æᵹðer ᵹe hwite ᵹimmas ᵹe reade. 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvi. cii. (1495) M iv b/2 Those [sc. Zineth stones] that ben whyttest..ben not so precyous. a 1425 tr. Arderne's Treat. Fistula, etc. 54 Poudre of white glasse. 1662 Merrett tr. Neri's Art of Glass 147 The pots wherein Enamels are made must be glased with white glass and bear the fire. 1738 G. C. Deering Catal. Stirp. 128 Thousands of little white Bubbles filled with Water. 1890 C. H. Moore Gothic Archit. x. 303 White glass is introduced here and there [in a stained-glass window] to heighten the effect. |
d. Blank, not written or printed upon;
† (of a document) unendorsed (
cf. white-backed in 12 c).
| 1466 Stonor Papers (Camden) I. 87 Ye seye þat ye have paid þe money: þer for y sende yowe the writte white. ? a 1550 Faine wald I 33 in Dunbar's Poems (S.T.S.) 311 Gif lytil rewarde be in wryting, Bettir war leif my paper quhyte. a 1600 Flodden Field lviii, Sweet sonne Edward, white bookes thou make, And euer haue pittye on the pore cominaltye. 1680, 1772, 1859 [see white paper (b) in 11 e]. 1683, 1770 [see white line 2]. |
e. [
tr. It. voce bianca white voice.] Of a singing voice or its sound: lacking any emotional coloration (such as may be imparted by vibrato). Also
transf. Cf. voix blanche s.v. voix.
| 1884 F. Niecks Dict. Mus. Terms 257 Voce bianca (It.), lit. ‘white voice’. The female and children's voices, and also some bright-sounding instruments, are thus called. 1904 S. Joyce Dublin Diary (1962) 39, I called McCormack's voice ‘a white voice’—it is a male contralto. 1921 L. Tetrazzini My Life of Song xix. 316 Be careful not to simulate too broad a smile. Too wide a smile often accompanies what is called ‘the white voice’. This is a voice production where a head resonance alone is employed, without sufficient of the appoggio or enough of the mouth resonance to give the tone a vital quality. This ‘white voice’ should be thoroughly understood, and is one of the many shades of tone a singer can use at times..to produce certain atmospheric effects. For instance, in the mad scene in Lucia, the use of the ‘white voice’ suggests the babbling of the mad woman, as the same voice..in the last act of La Boheme suggests utter physical exhaustion, and the approach of death. An entire voice production on this colourless line, however, would always lack the brilliancy and the vitality which inspires enthusiasm. 1951 W. Morum Gabriel i. iv. 56 That vibrato..[is] no use for symphony work. In the big orchestras the trumpeter employs what we call a white tone. A pure tone. 1957 V. Nabokov Pnin 182 ‘I want a last piece of advice from you,’ said Liza in what the French call a ‘white’ voice. 1961 Times 28 Sept. 16/1 An attractive, brightly ringing voice, rather white at the top but pleasantly dark below. 1975 Gramophone Dec. 1075/1 The soprano, Emma Kirkby, produces a ‘white tone’ which is scarcely distinguishable from that of a choir boy in some items, and this makes for a commendable purity of intonation. 1976 Times 8 Nov. 8/6 Where another team might produce a remote, ‘white’ sound, without vibrato..the Amadeus [Quartet] permitted a more human, warm tone. 1981 Ld. Harewood Tongs & Bones xiii. 209 He contented himself for the first act with accurate, small-scale singing in a rather small, white voice. |
f. Of a drink of coffee: with milk or cream added.
| [1900 G. Bell Let. 25 May (1927) I. 113 Besides the bitter black coffee, we were handed cups of what they [sc. Hasineh Arabs] called ‘white coffee’—hot water, much sweetened and flavoured with almonds.] 1925 X. M. Boulestin Conduct of Kitchen 10 It is somewhat distressing..to have to stop at the coffee-stall on the way home for an honest sandwich and a cup of ‘white’ coffee. 1940 Punch 6 May (Summer No., unpaginated) (caption), Please don't hesitate to say if you prefer your coffee white. 1982 H. Shaw Death of Don i. 3 ‘Black or white, Master?’ ‘White, please.’.. They took their coffee and brandy and sat down. |
3. Of or in reference to the skin or complexion: Light in colour, fair. (Often as a poetic term of commendation.) Now
rare or
Obs. exc. as in 4.
| a 900 Cynewulf Elene 73 Wlitescyne..hwit & hiwbeorht hæleða nathwylc. a 1225 Ancr. R. 116 Hire sulf biholden hire owune honden hwite. 1297 R. Glouc. (Rolls) 566 In þe worlde her pere nas, So ȝwit ne of suich color. a 1300 Cursor M. 28010 Yee leuedis, wit your quite hals. c 1374 Chaucer Troylus ii. 1062 Þow Mynerua þe white, Yef þow me wit my lettre to deuyse. 1422 Yonge tr. Secr. Secr. 225 Pyteous and merciabill man tokenyth whitte coloure and cleene. c 1480 Henryson Thre Deid Pollis 25 O ladeis quhyt, in claithis corruscant. 15.. Dunbar Poems lxxxviii. 46 Fair be their wives, right lovesom, white and small. 1598 Marston Pigmal., Reactio 35 Ye Granta's white Nymphs come. 1689 N. Lee Princess of Cleve ii. ii, He has..a Skin so white—and soft as Sattin with the Grain. |
4. Applied to those of ethnic types (chiefly European or of European extraction) characterized by light complexion, as distinguished from
black,
red,
yellow, etc. Also
transf. See also
whitefellow,
white slave, etc. in 11 e, and
white man.
poor white folk(s) or trash : a contemptuous name given in America by Blacks to white people of no substance (1836, etc. in Thornton
Amer. Gloss.); hence
poor-white-folksy,
-trashy adjs.;
cf. trash n.1 4,
white n. 13. So
poor white,
poor-white as compound
adj. (not always contemptuous, and in wider use,
esp. in
S. Afr.); also
fig.| 1604 E. G[rimstone] tr. D'Acosta's Hist. Indies ii. xi. 106 Under the same line..lies a part of Peru, and of the new kingdome of Grenado, which..are very temperate Countries,..and the inhabitants are white. 1680 C. Nesse Ch. Hist. 27 The White Line, (the Posterity of Seth,)..the black Line the Cursed brood of Cain. 1777 Summary Acc. Tobago 29 The white inhabitants..do not exceed seven hundred. The negroes, amounting to about twelve thousand, are kept in awe by an active militia. 1821 Austin Papers (1924) I. 446 My friend could probably take with him about twenty negroes and perhaps a poor white family consisting of a man and his wife. 1833 [see trash n.1 4]. 1836 J. K. Paulding Slavery in U.S. 205 The slave of a gentleman universally considers himself a superior being to ‘poor white folks’. 1856 Olmsted Slave States 84, I have been..told that the poor white people, meaning those, I suppose, who bring nothing to market to exchange for money but their labor,..are worse off in almost all respects than the slaves. 1864 Harper's Mag. Aug. 412/2, I wouldn't do my hair in a three strand braid on no account; it is too poor-white-folksy for me. 1865 Whittier Lesson & our Duty Prose Wks. 1889 III. 151 The negro is to be left powerless in the hands of the ‘White trash’, who hate him with a bitter hatred. 1911 Chambers's Jrnl. Jan. 6/1 An effort has also been made to enrol men of the ‘poor white’ class in the police force, for which they appear well adapted. 1949 Race Relations in S. Afr. 413 It was not until 1898 that the first organized effort at their rehabilitation was made. In that year the Dutch Reformed Church in the Cape Colony established the Kakamas Labour Settlement for ‘Poor White’ families. 1951 H. Giles Harbin's Ridge 63 He never had been much account. Always content just to make out, which we considered poor-white-trashy in our parts. 1958 New Statesman 1 Feb. 143/1 In The Hamlet Faulkner describes the infiltration out of nowhere into..that sequestered poor-white corner of Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, of the Snopes family. 1958 Times Lit. Suppl. 13 June 328/5 Mr. Chase's thesis allows us to see them [sc. many popular American novels] as, so to say, poor-white relations of incomparably more distinguished works, relations that all the same show, in however degenerate a way, similar fundamental responses to the nature of American experience. 1958 A. Jackson Trader on Veld 43 As a matter of course, every property was divided equally among the owner's sons upon his death... Few things contributed more effectively to the creation of a Poor White class than did this usage. 1979 J. Drummond Patriots xv. 77 He'd been poor, the son of a poor-white farmer. |
b. slang or
colloq. (by extension from
white man 2 b;
orig. U.S.) Honourable; square-dealing. Also as
adv.| 1877 Besant & Rice Golden Butterfly xviii, A good fellow is Rayner; as white a man as I ever knew. 1890 Century Mag. Feb. 523/2 There ain't a whiter man than Laramie Jack from the Wind River Mountains down to Santa Fe. 1913 E. Wharton Cust. Country ix, Well—this is white of you. Ibid. xviii, I meant to act white by you. |
c. Of or pertaining to white people.
| 1852 Mrs. Stowe Uncle Tom's C. xxiii, He had white blood in his veins. 1868 N.Y. Herald 4 July 5/2 The registered white vote has been very greatly increased. 1870 Kingsley At Last xvi, Exclusive sugar cultivation had put a premium on unskilled slave-labour, to the disadvantage of skilled white-labour. 1896 Baden-Powell Matabele Campaign xviii, The white power of South Africa. 1933, etc. [see white jazz, sense 11 e below]. 1937 L. & E. Dowling tr. H. Panassié's Hot Jazz ii. 28 White musicians were playing..a so-called ‘white’ hot style intended to compete with the other style. 1944 Living off Land iv. 64 Natives are always hunting the coast for food. Also, there will be cattle stations, or white camps along the coast. 1959 ‘F. Newton’ Jazz Scene iv. 70 The most characteristically ‘white’ style in the history of jazz. 1965 F. Symington Tuktu 59 Most missionaries tried to teach their charges how to cope with the ‘white’ culture and economy. 1968 P. Oliver Screening Blues vi. 181 There appears to have been no relaxing of the strict segregation of record catalogues, nor any apparent attempt to secure a white market for Negro records of this [sc. pornographic] character. 1977 Times of Swaziland 25 Feb. 12 (Advt.), Farming estate... Strategically situated in centre of largest white area of popular Natal Midlands. 1984 J. McClure Artful Egg xi. 156 A couple..who affected sophisticated white manners and even spoke English with an almost white accent. |
5. † a. In early use
app. applied to illness marked by pallor.
Obs. b. Pale, pallid,
esp. from fear or other emotion. (Often in hyperbolical
phr. as white as a sheet.) Also in allusive phrases expressing cowardice (
cf. white-liver, -livered), and
transf. (as in
white rage,
white terror).
Phr.
to bleed white: (
a)
intr. (hyperbolically) to shed colourless blood (
rare); (
b)
trans. to drain completely of resources.
| c 1403 Clanvowe Cuckow & Night. 41, I am so shaken with the fevers whyte, Of al this May yet slepte I but a lyte. 1412–20 Lydg. Chron. Troy iv. 2369 While he laie þus in his þrowes white. a 1508 Dunbar Tua Mariit Wemen 426 Than lay I furtgh my bright buke on breid on my knee..And drawis my clok forthwart our my face quhit. 1592 Shakes. Ven. & Ad. 643 Didst thou not marke my face, was it not white? Sawest thou not signes of feare lurke in mine eye? 1596 ― Merch. V. iii. ii. 86 How manie cowards..weare..The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars, Who inward searcht, haue lyuers white as milke. 1605 ― Macb. ii. ii. 65, I shame To weare a Heart so white. 1626 Bp. Hall Contempl. xiii. David & Gol., Now wee see..those, which haue giuen good proofes of magnanimitie, at other times, haue bewrayed white liuers. 1753 J. Collier Art Torment. i. ii. 46 She..looks as white as a cloth. 1799 Southey Bp. Hatto 35 He had a countenance white with alarm. 1841 S. Warren Ten Thou. i. x, He hurried down..white with rage. 1854 Dickens Hard T. i. ii, His skin was so unwholesomely deficient in the natural tinge, that he looked as though, if he were cut, he would bleed white. 1860 S. Brooks Gordian Knot ii, The most gentlemanly millionaire of them all has since been transported, and another is in white terror of a similar destiny. 1866 G. Macdonald Ann. Q. Neighb. xxxii, She is as white as a sheet. 1885 ‘F. Anstey’ Tinted Venus vi, He was in a white rage. 1897 Hall Caine Christian iii. xii, The man..turned white as a ghost. 1935 Sabbath School Worker Nov. 6/1 ‘There are too many appeals for money’, the people are ‘bled white’, and ‘we can't give another penny’. 1945 R. Chandler in R. Chandler Speaking (1966) 113 It is the writers' own weakness as craftsmen that permits the superior egos to bleed them white of initiative, imagination, and integrity. 1982 ‘W. Haggard’ Mischief-Makers i. 16 Her husband had been a wealthy man, the lady's solicitors sharp and ruthless, and her husband had been bled white to get rid of her. |
6. a. Clothed or arrayed in white;
spec. belonging to an ecclesiastical order distinguished by wearing a white habit (see also
white canons s.v. canon n. 1, and
white friar,
white monk).
white ball: a ball at which all the ladies are dressed in white.
white nun, a Cistercian nun (
cf. white monk).
| a 1225 Leg. Kath. 1576 Ha seh sitten þis meiden mid monie hwite wurðliche men. a 1400 Prymer (1891) 22 The white [L. candidatus] oost of martires. c 1400 Brut 314 Þere aros anoþer cumpanye of diuers nacions þat was called ‘þe white companye,’ þe whiche, in þe parties & cuntre of Lumbardye, dede myche sorwe. c 1420 Sir Amadace (Camden) xxxviii, Quod the quite knyȝte ‘Quat mon is this?’ c 1450 Holland Howlat 178 The Se Mawis war monkis, the blak and the quhyte. 1470–85 Malory Arthur xiii. ix. 623 He came to a whyte Abbay. 1598 Shakes. Merry W. v. v. 41 Fairies blacke, gray, greene, and white. 1895 Pall Mall Mag. Sept. 140 A month after Mamie's arrival Lidian gave a ‘white ball’ in her honour. 1877 J. Penderel-Brodhurst Guide to Boscobel v. 20 Whiteladies... The name is derived from the circumstance that the house was once a Priory of Cistercian or White Nuns. 1903 Chandlery Pilgr. Walks Rome (1908) 128 The Olivetans or white Benedictines. 1954 A. Seton Katherine xxxii. 536 Katherine..surveyed the two nuns... White nuns, Cistercians, shrouded in snowy wimples and habits. |
b. From the 17th century white has been specially associated with royalist and legitimist causes (
e.g. the white flag of the Bourbons), and hence in recent times
white has been applied to certain constitutional or anti-revolutionary parties and the policy for which they stand. In recent use applied to the Kuomintang in China and to the Christian Democrats in Italy. (See
white n. 19, and
cf. red a.
and n.1 9 b.)
| 1749 J. Ray Compl. Hist. Reb. 331 She got together all her Clan, and marched at their Head (with a white Cockade, &c.) and presented them to the Mock Prince. Ibid. 341 The Rebel Army were assembled with their White Flags displayed. a 1784 Johnson in Boswell an. 1763 note, Boswell, in the year 1745,..wore a white cockade, and prayed for King James. 1848 T. W. Redhead Fr. Rev. II. 302 Suppressing the tricolour, and substituting in its stead the white flag. 1849 W. C. Taylor House of Orleans III. 222 He had been one of the first to raise the White Flag in 1814; he had levied a regiment of Royalists during the hundred days. a 1879 J. Macdonell France since 1st Empire 117 The French ministers could show clemency at Paris, but they were not so well able to keep down the fury of the Royalists in the provinces. Thus was the Red Terror succeeded by the White. 1903 Daily Chron. 20 June 3/2 His position is that known in Italy as ‘White’, or constitutional, as compared with the clerical ‘Blacks’ and the republican ‘Reds’. 1918 Times 9 Apr. 6/4 (Finland) Germany has secured a strong hold of the gratitude of ‘White’ public opinion. 1937 E. Snow Red Star over China i. i. 21 To get in touch with Communists in the ‘White’ areas [of China] was extremely difficult. 1952 [see Kuomintang]. 1965 C. D. Eby Seige of Alcázar (1966) iii. 63 In less than forty-eight hours the Alcázar had become a solitary White island in the middle of a raging Red sea. 1965 M. Michael tr. Myrdal's Rep. from Chinese Village (1967) iii. 131 My father was taken by the white bandits and beheaded. 1967 C. Seton-Watson Italy from Liberalism to Fascism xii. 514 A left wing, led by Miglioli, the pacifist and ‘white’ trade unionist, called for a Christian proletarian party that would make capitalism its main enemy. 1973 P. A. Allum Politics & Society in Post-War Naples 326 The DC and PCI are heirs to particular Italian subcultures, the Catholic and the marxist. Both..ensure..the electoral strengths of both parties in North and Centre, and above all in those regions (e.g. the ‘white’ provinces of the NE and ‘red’ provinces of the Centre, etc.) where they organise specific populations. |
7. fig. Morally or spiritually pure or stainless; spotless, unstained, innocent.
| 971 Blickl. Hom. 147 Hwylc is of us Drihten þæt hæbbe swa hwite saule swa þeos haliᵹe Marie? a 1225 Ancr. R. 324 Vor euere so heo [sc. the soul] is hwitture, so þe fulðe is schenre. c 1450 J. Capgrave Life St. Aug. xv, Whech seruauntis our Lord God had brout fro þe grete blaknesse of synne on-to þe fair white vertuous lyuyng. 1603 Shakes. Meas. for M. iii. ii. 198 Back wounding calumnie The whitest vertue strikes. 1608 Bp. Hall Char. i. 21 Hee hath white hands, and a cleane soule. 1616 B. Jonson Epigr. xciii, I doe not know a whiter soule. 1645 G. Daniel Scattered Fancies xxxiii, But Danger onlie gvilt attends; I bring White Thoughts. 1737 Pope Hor. Epist. ii. i. 216 In our own [days]..No whiter page than Addison remains. 1859 Hawthorne Marble Faun xxiii, There can be no harm to my white Hilda in one parting kiss. 1862 Trollope Orley F. xxxvi, It is I whose duty it is to see that your name be made white again. |
b. Free from malignity or evil intent; beneficent, innocent, harmless,
esp. as opposed to something characterized as
black (
cf. black a. 8, 9): chiefly in
phr. white lie (see
lie n.1 1 b),
white magic (
magic n. 1 b;
cf. black art); see also
white paternoster s.v. paternoster 2, and
white witch.
| 1651 C. Cartwright Cert. Relig. iii. 36 He did not know whether his admonisher were black or white..an evill or a good spirit. 1655 Fuller Ch. Hist. ii. v. §12 He made his Harp..make musick of it self; which no White Art could perform. 1718 F. Hutchinson Witchcraft ii. 26 A Teacher of the White Magic, that pretends to deal only with Good Angels. 1749–50 Richardson in Mrs. Barbauld Corr. (1804) IV. 316 Don't you think..that I have reason to exclaim against white fibs? 1828 Miss Mitford Village Ser. iii. Admiral on Shore, Julia..asserted her female privilege of white-lying, and declared [etc.]. 1855 Kingsley Westw. Ho! iv, They be mortal feared of witches,..and mortal hard on 'em, even on a pure body like me, that doth a bit in the white way. 1914 Sir E. Shackleton in Scotsman 29 Oct. 3/8, I send you my last cable as we start for the Antarctic. We are leaving now to carry on our white warfare. |
c. Of propaganda: truthful.
| 1965 B. Sweet-Escott Baker Street Irregular i. 29 The Ministry of Information..confined itself to straight or ‘white’ propaganda in neutral and friendly countries. 1976 [see propaganda 3]. |
8. (Chiefly of times and seasons). Propitious, favourable; auspicious, fortunate, happy. Now
rare.
| 1629 Shirley Grateful Serv. ii. i, Till this white houre, these walles were neuer proud, T'inclose a guest. 1638–56 Cowley Davideis ii. 830 Thy Fate's all white. 1660 Dryden Astræa Redux 292 And now times whiter Series is begun. 1728 Ramsay Bonny Christy iv, He wisely this white Minute took, And flang his Arms about her. 1749 Fielding Tom Jones viii. xi, What is called by Schoolboys Black Monday, was to me the whitest in the whole Year. 1830 Lytton P. Clifford xxix, I will not even press you to appoint that day, which to me will be the whitest of my life. 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. xvii. IV. 2 That was one of the few white days of a life, beneficent indeed..but far from happy. |
† 9. Highly prized, precious; dear, beloved, favourite, ‘pet’, ‘darling’. Often as a vague term of endearment. (See also
white son in 11 e, and
white boy.)
Obs.| c 1425 Non-Cycle Myst. Plays (1909) 33 Take vp Isaac, þi son so whyte. c 1537 in Ellis Orig. Lett. Ser. iii. III. 126 Master Pole..entred secretly in to a Monasterye..called Seynt Justyns, wheras he is ther wyte God and they his blacke angells. 1602 2nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass. ii. vi, I shall bee his little roague, and his white villaine for a whole weeke after. 1634 Heywood Lanc. Witches i. i. Wks. 1874 IV. 184 A merry song now mother, and thou shalt be my white girle. 1646 Extr. Kirk-Session Rec. Dunfermline (1865) 17 Jonet Wely..had slandered grissell walwood spouse to Jon alisone, wright, calling hir white bird. 1647 Trapp Comm. Matt. xiv. 3 If Iohn touch Herods white sin..Iohn must to prison. |
† 10. Fair-seeming, specious, plausible.
Obs.| c 1374 Chaucer Troylus iii. 901, I..feffe hym with a fewe wordes whyte. Ibid. 1567 For alle youre wordes whyte. 1412–20 Lydg. Chron. Troy iii. 4272 Hir wordis white, softe, & blaundyshynge, Wer meynt with feynyng & with flaterie. c 1480 Henryson Cock & Fox 205 Flatteraris with plesand wordis quhyte. 1513 Douglas æneis i. xi. 34 The schyning vissage of the god Cupyte, And his dissemelit slekit wordis quhyte. 1612 Sir J. Davies Why Ireland. etc. 93 The faire and white promises of Lewes the 11. 1613 Chapman Rev. Bussy d' Ambois v. i, This bloud I shed, is to saue the bloud Of many thousands. Guise. That's your white pretext. 1721 Kelly Sc. Prov. 158 The Scots call Flatteries Whitings, and Flatterers white People. 1825 Jamieson, White-Wind, flattery, wheedling; a cant term. |
11. Special collocations.
a. In names of species or varieties of animals distinguished by their white colour or colouring: as
white bear,
white fox,
white heron,
white herring,
white pelican,
white perch,
white shark,
white stork,
white trout,
white wagtail, for which see the
ns.; also
white † admirable,
admiral [
admiral n. 6], a dark-coloured butterfly,
Limenitis camilla, with white markings;
white baker (see e below);
white-bird, (
a) a name for the spotted flycatcher; (
b) see
quot. 1875; (
c) (without hyphen) in Irish folklore, a bird of fairyland;
white egret = white heron (
a) below;
white-fly, a small bug of the family Aleyrodidæ, usually covered with pale, powdery wax,
esp. Trialeurodes vaporariorum, which is a pest of greenhouse plants;
white fox, a small fox,
Alopex lagopus, native to northern Canada, Greenland, and Iceland, which has white fur in winter; also, the fur of this animal;
white game [
game n. 11]
= white partridge;
white goat = Rocky Mountain goat s.v. rocky a.
1 1 c;
white grouse = white partridge;
white grub, the larva of the cockchafer or other scarabæid;
white heron (
usu. qualified by
great), (
a) the common egret,
Egretta alba, a large white bird with a yellow bill and dark legs found in parts of Europe, Asia, North Africa, the Americas, and Australasia; (
b) a white subspecies of the great blue heron,
Ardea herodias, found in Florida;
white mouse (see e below);
white owl: see
owl n. 1 b;
white partridge ?
Obs., the ptarmigan;
white perch U.S.: see
perch n.1 2;
white pointer: see
pointer 12;
white rhino(ceros), a large, wide-mouthed rhinoceros,
Ceratotherium simum, native to parts of Sudan, Uganda, and South Africa;
white slipper (limpet),
snail (see
quots.);
white steenbras, a large marine food fish,
Lithognathus lithognathus, found in coastal regions of South Africa;
white whale = beluga 2;
white worm = white grub; see also
whitebait,
whitefish, etc.
b. In names of plants distinguished by white flowers or other parts, light-coloured bark, wood, root, fruit, seed, etc.; also applied to such flowers, wood, etc.: as
white beech,
white beet,
white bind,
white bine,
white broom,
white currant,
white dead-nettle,
white grape,
white hellebore,
white honeysuckle,
white horehound,
white jasmine,
white lilac,
white mustard,
white oats,
white peas,
white pepper,
white pine,
white raspberry,
white rye,
white sanders,
white willow (see the
ns.); also
white ash, (
a) a species or variety of ash with light-coloured wood;
esp. a North American ash,
Fraxinus americana; hence (
colloq.) an oar; also
attrib. (jocular) as
white-ash breeze, the impetus of the oar; (
b) a S. African ornamental tree with white flowers,
Platylophus trifoliatus, the white alder (
alder n.1 3);
white-bark pine, a pine with pale, flaky bark,
Pinus albicaulis, native to northwestern North America;
white bath (see e below);
white birch: see
birch n. 1 b;
white box, either of two Australian trees, the evergreen
Bursaria spinosa, which bears clusters of fragrant white flowers, or a box eucalypt,
Eucalyptus albens, which has pale leaves;
† white-bush = whitethorn;
white campion: see
campion2;
white cedar, (
a) any of several North American conifers,
esp. one of the genus
Chamæcyparis; (
b)
Austral., a name used for species of
Melia, deciduous trees native to the East Indies and Australia;
white clover: see
clover 1 b;
white corn (see 2 a (b));
white elm, the American elm,
Ulmus americana; also, the European elm,
Ulmus lævis, which resembles it closely;
white fir, any of several North American firs,
esp. Abies concolor, native to the south-western United States;
white grass, (
a)
Holcus lanatus; (
b) American species of
Leersia,
esp. L. virginica;
white mangrove: see
mangrove1 2;
white maple, any of several maples with pale bark,
esp. the silver maple,
Acer saccharinum, or the mountain maple,
A. spicatum;
white mulberry, a round-topped mulberry,
Morus alba, or its white or pink fruit;
white oak, any of several species of North American oak,
esp. Quercus alba, which is native to the eastern part of the continent; also, the wood of this tree;
† white plum, (
a)
= wheat-plum; (
b) a plum of Barbados having whitish bark;
white poplar, (
a) (see
poplar 1 b); (
b)
N. Amer., the aspen,
Populus tremuloides; (
c)
N. Amer., the tulip-tree,
Liriodendron tulipifera;
white-rot: see
rot n.1 2 c and sense 11 e below;
white spruce, a spruce with bluish foliage,
Picea glauca, native to North America;
white-tree, a name for different trees having light-coloured wood;
esp. Melaleuca leucodendron of Australia and the Malay archipelago;
white vine, (
a) the common bryony,
Bryonia dioica; (
b) traveller's-joy,
Clematis vitalba;
white walnut = butter-nut 1;
white wheat, wheat with white or light-coloured grain;
white wood, (
a) the alburnum, or lighter-coloured outer wood of a tree; (
b) any non-resinous wood.
c. In names of minerals, and of chemical or other products, of a white colour: as
white amber,
white antimony,
white arsenic,
white clay,
white copper,
white dammar,
white enamel,
white feldspar,
white (iron) pyrites,
white precipitate,
white salt,
white schorl,
white soap,
white tellurium,
white tin,
white tombac,
white vitriol,
white wax, for which see the
ns.; also
white ash, refined soda-ash as distinct from the crude
black ash (
ash n.2 2);
white brass, an alloy of copper and zinc, containing a large proportion of the latter;
white brick, (
a)
app. Bath brick; (
b) a hard, durable variety of brick made from gault;
white bronze, any light-coloured bronze;
white cast iron = white iron b;
cf. grey (
cast)
iron s.v. grey,
gray a. 8 c;
white damp [
damp n.1 1 b], carbonic oxide as occurring in coal-mines;
white earth, earth material (as clay) that is light-coloured;
spec. in
Painting, white earth-colour;
white leather (see
leather n. 1 and
whitleather);
white lights Obs. exc. dial., candles;
white metal, a name for various alloys of a light grey colour (also
attrib.);
white money, silver money, silver coins;
white nickel, a name for
chloanthite or other native nickel arsenide;
white oil, (
a) crude oil that is pale in colour; (
b) a colourless petroleum distillate;
spec. a highly refined heavy distillate used medicinally and in the food and plastics industries;
white phosphorus, (
a) the white opaque incrustation that forms on phosphorus when it is kept under water (?
obs.); (
b) the ordinary allotrope of phosphorus, a translucent waxy whitish or yellowish solid which unlike red phosphorus is poisonous and very reactive;
† white powder, a supposed kind of gunpowder exploding without noise;
white precipitate, either of two mercuric amidochlorides obtained by treating mercuric chloride with ammonia:
fusible white precipitate, HgCl
2(NH
3)
2, and
infusible white precipitate, HgClNH
2 (ammoniated mercury), obtained when there is excess ammonia and used in ointments against worm infection;
white rock, a name applied to intrusive basaltic rocks, altered to a light colour, occurring in coal-measures;
white-row (see
quot.);
white rubber, (
a) caoutchouc whitened by admixture of a pigment; (
b) the light-coloured caoutchouc obtained from the
white-rubber vine (
Landolphia owariensis);
white rust (see sense 11 e below);
white sapphire, a variety of corundum that is colourless owing to the absence of the impurities responsible for the blue colour of ordinary sapphire;
white spirit, a volatile colourless liquid distillate of petroleum that boils between about 150°C and 200°C and is widely used as a paint thinner and solvent;
† white straits (see
quots. and
strait n. 9);
white tin, (
a) refined metallic tin, in contrast to black tin; (
b) the ordinary allotrope of tin, in contrast to grey tin;
white trap = white rock;
† white wire, iron wire coated with tin.
d. In names of bodily parts or structures, and of diseases or abnormal bodily conditions, characterized by white colour: as
white blood, blood with an excess of white corpuscles, as in leuchæmia;
† white bone,
app. the costal cartilages;
white cell, corpuscle, a colourless blood-corpuscle, a leucocyte;
white finger(s) = Raynaud's phenomenon s.v. Raynaud; also
attrib.;
white flood, leucorrhœa;
white flux (see e below);
white gangrene, a form of gangrene in which the affected parts become whitish;
white haw, an affection of the eye (see
haw n.3);
white jaundice (see
jaundice n. 1 b);
white matter, the fibrous matter of the brain and spinal cord, as distinct from the
grey matter;
white scour, a disease of calves,
freq. due to infection with
E. coli, causing severe diarrhœa, dehydration, and often death;
white softening, a variety of softening of the brain (see
quot. 1873);
white swelling (see
swelling vbl. n. 2);
white (fibrous) tissue, white connective tissue, as distinct from
yellow tissue (
yellow a. C. 1 e).
| 1798 E. Donovan Nat. Hist. Brit. Insects VII. 75 The *White Admirable Butterfly feeds upon the common honey suckle or woodbine. 1906 R. South Butterflies Brit. Isles ii. 59 The White Admiral (Limenitis sibylla). The ‘White Admirable Butterfly’, as it was called by some of the older English entomologists, needs only to be seen to be at once recognized. |
| 1717 J. Petiver Papilionum Britanniæ Icones 1/2 in Opera (1764) II. vii, *White Admiral. Found about Dullidge and Wickham near Croyden, as also at Henly upon Thames. 1826 J. Curtis Brit. Entomol. III. 124 (heading) Limenitis camilla. The White Admiral. 1857 H. T. Stainton Man. Brit. Butterflies & Moths I. 33 White Admiral..Blackish brown, with a broad white band crossing the centre of the wings. 1922 V. Woolf Jacob's Room ii. 36 He had seen a white admiral circling higher and higher round an oak tree, but he had never caught it. 1968 Oxf. Bk. Insects 46/2 White Admiral..belongs to the same family as the Fritillaries. |
| 1801 Shaw Gen. Zool. II. 315 The Leucoryx or *White Antelope. |
| 1683 Coll. New Hampshire Hist. Soc. (1866) VIII. 146 [They] did feloniously..use about one cord of *white ash. 1784 [see red ash s.v. red a. 17 d]. 1820 T. Green Univ. Herbal II. 856/2 Fraxinus Americana, American Ash-tree.—There are several varieties of this, White Ash, Red Ash, Black Ash, &c. 1851 H. Melville Whale lxxxi, This clumsy lubber was striving to free his white ash. 1881 Raymond Mining Gloss., White-ash (Penn.). See Coal. 1882 Garden 23 Sept. 273/1 The white Ash of the United States may be taken as the type of most of the American kinds. 1892 Labour Commission Gloss., White Ash Finishers, men in the chemical industry..engaged upon the manufacture of soda ash..from salts derived from black ash. 1950 Chicago Tribune 27 Apr. iii. 10/1 Under each cutting spindle is placed a block of white ash. |
| 1851 H. Melville Moby Dick II. xxxix. 262 There she slides, now! Hurrah for the *white-ash breeze! 1906 Kipling Puck of Pook's Hill 101 We must wake the white-ash breeze,..A long pull for Stavanger! |
| 1908 N. L. Britton N. Amer. Trees 12 *White Bark Pine..a rather small tree of alpine habitat. 1949 Sierra Club Bull. Dec. 24, I knew I could not get any sleep just by crawling under the low branches of a white-bark pine. 1974 Blackw. Mag. Oct. 307/1 Stands of whitebark pine mingled with spruce..provide welcome shade. |
| 1613 Purchas Pilgrimage viii. iii. 620 There were *white Beares, and stagges farre greater then ours. |
| 1852 Seidel Organ 169 The levers by which the tongues are kept upon the beaks are generally made of *white beech. |
| 1805 R. W. Dickson Pract. Agric. II. 744 There is only one species of this plant [sc. hop] in cultivation, but which has several varieties, as the red-bind, the green-bind, the *white-bind, etc. |
| 1789 J. Morse Amer. Geogr. 197 On the high lands are..beech and *white birch. 1961 H. MacLennan Rivers of Canada 48 Otherwise nothing but the immense low forest of spruce with the occasional splash of white birch. 1980 Family Handyman Sept. 63/2 Because hardwoods are more dense, there is more energy in a cord of oak, say, than a cord of white birch or white pine. |
| 1875 Melliss St. Helena 98 Gygis candida, Wagl.—*White-bird. One of the most abundant sea-birds in the Island. 1892 W. B. Yeats Countess Kathleen 106 (title) The white birds. 1894 ― Land of Heart's Desire 41 The Child (from the door): White bird, white bird, come with me, little bird! Maire Bruin: She calls my soul! 1940 E. Pound Cantos lvi. 60 May the white birds remember this warrior. |
| 1843 R. J. Graves Syst. Clin. Med. vii. 85 Abstracting [by blister] a considerable portion of *white blood from the system. 1863 Aitken Sci. & Pract. Med. (ed. 2) II. 270 White-cell blood, or White blood—Leucocythæmia. |
| 1511 Mem. Ripon (Surtees) I. 314 Quendam N. Wallez felonice percussit cum uno le dager in pectore super le *wythbone. |
| 1909 A. E. Mack Bush Calendar 67 Flowers blooming [in January]. Bursaria spinosa. *White box or black thorn. 1923 Census of Plants of Victoria (Field Naturalists Club of Victoria) 46 Eucalyptus albens Miquel White Box. 1936 F. Clune Roaming round Darling xvii. 161 White box is a good burning wood, sheds a brown bark in springtime, then has a white surface. 1946 K. Tennant Lost Haven (1947) xvii. 289 ‘What are those trees down there?’..‘Blueberry ash, white box, whipwood.’ 1965 Austral. Encycl. III. 406/2 White box..having pallid glaucescent foliage. |
| 1538 Bury Wills (Camden) 136 One lytle pot of *whyte brasse. 1875 Knight Dict. Mech. |
| 1538 Elyot Dict., Leucantha, *white bryer. |
| a 1756 E. Haywood New Present (1771) 252 Rubbing..with scouring paper, rotten-stone, or *white-brick. 1845 J. H. Parker Gloss. Terms Archit. (ed. 4) I. 72 In colour they are paler than ordinary red bricks, but are redder than the common white brick of Suffolk. 1969 R. Blythe Akenfield ix. 140 The school at Akenfield..is a stark, knife-edged building constructed of Suffolk white-brick, [etc.]. 1979 Guardian 10 July 19/7 The famous Suffolk whitebrick which Georgian architects favoured for the region's grander houses. |
| 1884 Lock Workshop Rec. Ser. iii. 28/1 This new kind of ‘*white bronze’ is not to be confounded with the alloy used in America under the same name..which consists principally of zinc. |
| 1882 Garden 3 June 384/1 The *white Broom and a sulphur-coloured Cytisus. |
| 1676 M. Cook Forest-Trees xxxii. 97 If you would make a Fence of one particular sort of Wood, the very best is your *White-bush, or White-thorn. |
| 1795 *White cast iron [see iron n.1 2]. 1967 A. H. Cottrell Introd. Metall. xxv. 518 In white cast irons, which are usually made by limiting the content of graphite-forming elements such as silicon to low levels.., all the carbon exists as cementite and the name white refers to the bright fracture produced by this brittle constituent. |
| 1674 J. Josselyn Acct. Two Voy. New England 67 The *white Cedar is a stately Tree. 1709 [see pitch pine]. 1781–2 T. Jefferson Notes Virginia (1787) 62 White cedar, Cupressus Thyoides. 1847 Leichhardt Jrnl. iii. 60 The white cedar (Melia Azedarach). 1856 [see cedar 3]. 1884 A. Nilson Timber Trees New South Wales 97 White Cedar.—An elegant tree. 1908 E. J. Banfield Confessions of Beachcomber i. i. 20 The white cedar..is a welcome and not unworthy substitute in appearance and perfume for English lilac. 1941 Sun (Baltimore) 12 Aug. 15/2 The hulls will be of two thicknesses, mahogany over white cedar. 1980 P. Moyes Angel of Death xi. 148 A fallen tree—a biggish white cedar with a trunk about a foot in diameter. |
| 1861 Q. Jrnl. Microsc. Sci. I. 167 Colourless corpuscles, or *white cells, exist in the blood in a comparatively small number. 1885, 1968 White cell [see red cell 1]. |
| 1480 *White clay [see clay n. 1 a]. 1686 Plot Staffordsh. 122 White-clay, so called it seems though of a blewish colour, and used for making yellow-colour'd ware. 1783 J. Wedgwood Let. 13 Oct. (1965) 272 Having seen a specimen of fine white clay..and being told it came from the Apalachian moutains.. I was so delighted with the appearance of this beautiful raw material..that..I determined upon sending an agent to the spot. 1852 in Proc. Amer. Antiquarian Soc. (1933) XLIII. 373 Mr Nichols..has in contemplation the purchase of a tract of land containing a mine of white or China Clay. |
| 1790 S. Deane New-England Farmer 58/2 Red and *white clover are the only sorts known and esteemed in this country. 1884 F. J. Lloyd Science of Agriculture xv. 268 White or Dutch clover..is a well-known variety of good feeding quality. 1977 J. L. Harper Population Biol. Plants i. 25 The useful measure is the number of leaves, for example in..white clover. |
| 1875 Knight Dict. Mech., *White Copper, an alloy forming an imitation of silver. |
| 1866 *White corpuscles [see leucocytosis]. 1898 [see leucocyte]. |
| 1578 Lyte Dodoens i. lxxi. 107 The fifth..may be..called..*white Crowfoote, & water Crowfoote. 1578 [see water-lily]. |
| 1866 Treas. Bot., *White dammer. |
| 1881 Raymond Mining Gloss., *White-damp, a poisonous gas sometimes (more rarely than fire-damp or choke-damp, etc.), encountered in coal mines. |
| 1832 W. A. Ferris Diary 8 May in Life in Rocky Mts. (1940) xxv. 143 It is sometimes found in various parts of the country, and is sometimes called ‘*white earth’. 1910 A. P. Laurie Materials of Painter's Craft iv. 42 Then among the whites we have a large number of white earths, of which chalk is of course the most important. 1969 R. Mayer Dict. Art Terms & Techniques 430/1 Because of its clarity and high absorbency, white earth is well suited for, and in limited use as, a base for certain lakes. |
| 1835 J. J. Audubon Ornith. Biogr. III. 137 [The Louisiana Heron] is at all seasons a social bird, moving about in company with the Blue Heron or the *White Egret. 1872 E. Coues Key to N. Amer. Birds 267 Genus Ardea Linnæus... Great White Egret, White Heron... Egretta... Little White Egret, Snowy Heron... Candidissima. 1939 Florida (Federal Writers' Project) i. 26 The handsome white egret, once nearly extinct, is now protected. 1957 D. A. Bannerman Birds Brit. Isles VI. 68 The great white egret, though included in the genus Egretta, is in habit more like the grey heron and the purple heron and less like the egrets. |
| 1770 J. R. Forster tr. Kalm's Trav. N. Amer. I. 67 Ulmus Americana, the *white elm. 1860 Trans. Illinois Agric. Soc. IV. 451 The White Elm..is not good timber—is hard to split. 1948 N.W. Ohio Q. Winter 10 It was made of a strip of white elm bark about one foot wide. 1981 Sci. Amer. Aug. 40/3 Most European elms, including the European white elm (U. laevis), the Englsh elm (U. procera) and the varioius cultivars of the species U. carpinifolia are also susceptible. |
| 1800 tr. Lagrange's Chem. II. 67 To make *white enamel, a hundred parts of lead and thirty of tin are generally calcined..and..mixed with a hundred parts of sand and twenty of potash:..the result is a milky white opake glass, called White Enamel. |
| 1839 H. T. De la Beche Rep. Geol. Cornwall, etc. vi. 180 Plates of black mica and crystals of *white felspar. |
| 1939 Stedman Med. Dict. (ed. 14) 1231/2 *White fingers, an occupational disease occurring in operators of pneumatic hammers who are exposed to cold, affecting usually the fingers of the left hand. 1947 [see pneumatic a. (n.) 1 a]. 1971 New Scientist 15 Apr. 154/3 Researchers have found bone softening in chain saw operators and there is also the ‘white fingers’ complaint, with fingers going cold and numb. 1973 [see Raynaud]. 1978 Kingston (Ontario) Whig-Standard 18 July 15/2 Regular users of chain saws, grinders, and pneumatic hammers, drills and chisels often develop a condition called ‘white finger’ disease. |
| 1850 A. J. Allen Ten Years in Oregon v. 52 They found the red and *white fir, spoken of by Clark and Lewis. 1897, 1913 [see grand fir s.v. grand a. 12]. 1948 Pacific Discovery Mar. 7/2 Sequoias become established most easily..on cool north and east slopes with sugar pine and white fir. |
| 1900 Technical Ser. Div. Entomol., U.S. Dept. Agric. No. 8 10 The minute ‘*white⁓flies’..may be flying around. 1925 A. D. Imms Gen. Textbk. Entomol. 360 The ‘white flies’ are a much neglected group. 1946 Nature 14 Dec. 852/1 A few [gall midges] are carnivorous, preying upon..white-flies, other gall midges and the like. 1981 Farmstead Mag. Winter 35/3 Mites, aphids and whiteflies sometimes bother green⁓house cukes, but don't let this panic you into using a chemical spray. |
| 1578 Lyte Dodoens i. lix. 86 Wilde Tansie..preuayleth..agaynst the *white floud, or issue of floures. |
| 1696 in H. Kelsey Papers (1929) 54 They [sc. Indians] brought nothing but 2 *white fox skins. 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1776) III. 333 The fur of the white fox is held in no great estimation. 1862 Canad. Naturalist May 138 White foxes have been killed on the south shore of Great Slave Lake. 1926 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 22 July 19/6 The average price for white fox was $34.85. 1930 R. W. Service Coll. Verse 269 Fur had they, white fox, marten, mink, to trade. 1969 Beaver (Winnipeg) Summer 10/2 The white fox is the principal source of fur income at Rankin [Inlet] as elsewhere. |
| 1678 Ray Willughby's Ornith. 176 The *white Game, erroneously called the white Partridge, Lagopus avis. |
| 1886 Buck's Handbk. Med. Sci. III. 300/2 ‘*White’ Gangrene seems to be simply a moist gangrene..in which there is a serous exudate. |
| 1877 C. Hallock Sportman's Gazetteer 40 The *White Goat is confined to the loftiest peaks of the Rocky Mountains. 1936 D. McCowan Animals Canad. Rockies xiv. 122 A full grown male White goat has a body length of about five feet, stands approximately forty inches high at the shoulder and is from two hundred to two hundred and fifty pounds in weight. |
| 1846–7 Thoreau Walden (1957) 114 The red pine and the black ash, the *white grape and the yellow violet. |
| 1780 Young Tour Irel. I. 382 Rye grass (lolium perenne) and *white grass (holcus lanatus) do well. 1891 Cent. Dict. s.v. Leersia, Three species occur in the United States, and are known as white-grass, especially L. Virginica. |
| 1797 T. Bewick British Birds I. 303 *White Grouse. |
| a 1817 T. Dwight Trav. New Eng., etc. (1821) I. 77 The *white-grub has..extensively injured meadows and pastures. |
| 1551 Turner Herbal i. I v, The leues also broken in oyle are good for the *whyte hawe, or the perle in the eye. |
| 1624, etc. *White heron [see heron, hern 1 b]. 1813 A. Wilson Amer. Ornithol. VII. 106 The opportunities which I have..had, of observing them with the train..from its first appearance to its full growth, satisfies me that the Great White Heron with, and that without the long plumes are one and the same species, in different periods of age. 1846, etc. [see kotuku]. 1917 Auk XXXIV. 86 The Great White Heron is of more social habits than the Blue Heron. 1939 Florida (Federal Writers' Project) i. 26 The great white heron, a Florida native, nests on the keys. 1957 D. A. Bannerman Birds Brit. Isles VI. 71 The great white heron is..very rare in North Africa in winter west of Egyptian territory. 1964 A. L. Thomson New Dict. Birds 367/2 The Great White Heron A[rdea] ‘occidentalis’ of Florida..may be no more than a local population of a colour phase. 1966 Encycl. N.Z. I. 209/1 Swamp and lake-edge birds include the rare white heron..(Egretta alba). 1966 P. Sherlock West Indian Folk-Tales 57 A flock of white herons flew across the river. |
| 1857 Miller Elem. Chem., Org. (1862) i. §3. 61 Blue indigo, under the combined action of protoxide of iron and alkalies, becomes converted into *white indigo. |
| 1896 Chester Dict. Names Min., *White iron ore, an early name for siderite. Ibid., *White iron pyrites, a popular name for marcasite. |
| 1526 in Househ. Ord. (1790) 162 One torch, one pricket, two sises, one pound of *white lights, ten talshides, eight faggotts. 1610 Ibid. 335 Halfe a pounde of white lightes..per diem. |
| 1731 Miller Gard. Dict. 5 A b, The *White Lilac, or Pipe-Tree. 1882 Garden 6 May 317/2 A large bunch of white Lilac. |
| 1774 in Rep. Bd. Trustees Publ. Archives Nova Scotia (1945) 34 This town..affords a great store of fine timber..white and black ash; *white mapple; rock mapple. 1832 D. J. Browne Sylva Amer. 101 The white maple puts forth green and yellow flowers early in the spring. 1916 E. T. Seton Woodcraft Man. 291 Silver Maple, White or Soft Maple..usually a little smaller than the Sugar Maple. 1981 Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. lxvii. 37 Sugar maple... All of the Iron Range respondents [in Minnesota] use the generic maple... On the Mesabi single instances of soft maple, sugar maple, and white maple are recorded. |
| c 1440 Promp. Parv. 525/2 *Whyte marbulle, carnium. 1849 Burke Landed Gentry III. 27/2 The splendid mausoleum..was magnificently sculptured in white marble. |
| 1839–47 Todd's Cycl. Anat. III. 695 A convolution [of the brain] consists of a fold of grey matter, enclosing a process of *white or fibrous matter. 1869 Huxley Elem. Physiol. (ed. 3) vi. 299 In the medulla oblongata,..[as] in the spinal cord..the white matter is external, and the grey internal. But, in the cerebellum and cerebral hemispheres, the grey matter is external and the white internal. |
| 1613 in Papers rel. Scots in Poland (1915) 71 A *white metal cup. 1710 N. Blundell Diary (1895) 86 We went to see y{supm} make White-Mettle Muggs. 1879 H. Phillips Addit. Notes upon Coins 8 A number of medals in white metal and copper. 1884 Lock Workshop Rec. Ser. iii. 40/2 The term ‘white metal’ is applied to all alloys in which zinc, tin, or lead is in sufficient proportion to impart a white colour. |
| 1482 Cely Papers (Camden) 116 The goldys and *whyte mony..as they were corrant. 1593 Greene 3rd Pt. Art Cony Catching C 3, There was seuen pound in Golde, beside thirty shillings and odde white money. 1611 Cotgr. s.v. Blanc, Monnoye blanche, white money; coyne of brasse, or copper, siluered ouer. 1696 Lond. Gaz. No. 3162/4 Where all Persons may be Accommodated with any of their sorts for white Money, either Half-Crowns, Shillings, or Sixpences. a 1700 Evelyn Diary 9 Mar. 1664, The fine new mill'd coin both of white money and guineas. 1809 Bawdwen Domesday Bk. 405 Rutland pays to the King one hundred and fifty pounds white money. 1820 Blackw. Mag. May 158 My hand has nae been crossed with white money but ance these seven blessed days. |
| 1610 True Decl. Estate of Virginia 55 There are innumerable *White Mulberry trees. 1737 J. Wesley Jrnl. 2 Dec. (1910) I. 402 The white mulberry is not good to eat. 1850 [see mulberry 1]. 1957 M. Hadfield Brit. Trees 248 The white mulberry..(so called from its white or pinkish, insipid fruit), is cultivated as the principal food plant of the caterpillar of the silkworm moth. 1975 E. Wigginton Foxfire 3 276 Dried white mulberries were used as a substitute for raisins or figs. |
| 1868 Dana Min. (ed. 5) 70 Chloanthite;..*White Nickel. 1896 Chester Dict. Names Min. 287 White nickel. A syn. of both rammelsbergite and chloanthite. |
| 1634 *White oak [see red oak s.v. red a. 17 d]. 1770 J. R. Forster tr. Kalm's Trav. N. Amer. I. 65 Quercus alba, the white oak. 1873 ‘Mark Twain’ & Warner Gilded Age xvii. 163 You kin git all the rails you want outen my white-oak timber over thar. 1883 J. Macaulay Grey Hawk iii. 44 The banks on both sides are covered with poplar and white oak and other trees, which grow to a considerable size. 1930 W. Faulkner As I lay Dying 132 Tull take and cut them two big whiteoaks. 1941 Sun (Baltimore) 12 Aug. 17/2 They had in storage enough Dorchester county white oak to construct keels and frames. 1975 White oak [see pin oak s.v. pin n.1 18]. |
| 1721 Bailey, *White oakham, a sort of Tow or Flax to drive into the Seams of Ships. |
| 1913 V. B. Lewes Oil Fuel 38 In some parts of the world small deposits of what are called ‘*white oil’ are..found. 1919 Electric Jrnl. XVI. 336/2 Lectroseal transformer oil and white oil of paraffin have marked absorption. 1925 A. B. Thompson Oil-Field Explor. & Development I. xi. 504 The so-called ‘white’ oils occasionally encountered in oil-fields are usually transparent and amber or sherry tinted, and are evidently filtration products of darker varieties commonly found in the neighbourhood. 1938 F. M. Archibald in A. E. Dunstan et al. Sci. of Petroleum IV. 2838/1 Petrolatum liquidum is the highest grade of white oil. 1977 Lubricants Business (Shell Internat. Petroleum Co.) 4 Technical and medicinal white oils are also important. |
| 1674 tr. Scheffer's Lapland 138 No bird abounds there more then the *white Partridge. 1678 White partridge [see white game above]. 1747 G. Edwards Nat. Hist. Birds ii. 72. |
| 1775 A. Burnaby Trav. N. Amer. 15 These waters are stored with incredible quantities of fish, such as sheeps-heads, rock-fish, drums, *white perch. 1844 Amer. Jrnl. Sci. XLVII. 58 Labrax mucronatus, Cuv., White Perch. 1851 T. A. Burke Polly Peablossom's Wedding 129 The trout and white perch bit beautifully. 1949 Sat. Even. Post 12 Mar. 46/4 About the best fun was going out to the pond after white perch. |
| 1849 H. Watts tr. Gmelin's Hand-bk. Chem. II. v. 107 Phosphorus, kept under water{ddd}gradually becomes covered with an opaque crust which..afterwards turns white... This *white phosphorus retains its original appearance when dried over oil of vitriol. 1865 Chem. News 24 Nov. 251/1 He establishes that white phosphorus is neither a hydrate nor an allotropic state of ordinary phosphorus...but that it is, in fact, merely ordinary phosphorus irregularly corroded on the surface by the action of air dissolved in the water. 1884 Frankland & Japp Inorg. Chem. xxx. 371 Amorphous phosphorus, prepared by any of the above methods, invariably contains a small quantity of white phosphorus, the presence of which renders the product dangerously inflammable. 1976 New Yorker 15 Mar. 80/3 Two white-phosphorus rounds were exploded over the landing zone to indicate the ‘all clear’. |
| 1530 Palsgr. 288/2 *White plome, prune blanche. 1696 Plukenet Almagestum Opera 1769 II. 306 Prunus Sylvestris cortice albicante,..White Plumme Barbadensibus dicta. |
| 1774 in J. L. Peyton Adventures my Grandfather (1867) 127 The forest of Kentucky consists of yellow and *white poplar, walnut, [etc.]. 1814 F. Pursh Flora Americæ Septentrionalis II. 383 Liriodendron..generally known by the name of Tulip-tree, or White and Yellow Poplar. 1908 C. Mair Through Mackenzie Basin 81 It was well timbered..with the finest white poplar I had yet seen. 1954 H. Evans Mist on River 19 The wide and sunny freedom of his valley, with birches and white poplars between the belts of jackpine. |
| 1613 Beaum. & Fl. Honest Man's Fort. ii. i, That you were kil'd with a Pistoll charg'd with *white Powder. 1689 N. Lee Princess of Cleve ii. ii, A Secret Lover's like a Gun charg'd with White Powder, does Execution but makes no noise. |
| 1825 Phil. Mag. LXV. 227 With common salt I obtained the same results, mercury remaining, and *white precipitate being thrown down from the solutions, by liquid ammonia. 1887 Buck's Handbk. Med. Sci. IV. 743/2 Mercurammonic Chloride, NH2HgCl. This salt, commonly known as white precipitate, is officinal in the U.S. |
| 1923 J. W. Mellor Comprehensive Treat. Inorg. & Theoret. Chem. IV. xxxi. 786 Conversely, infusible white precipitate is converted back to fusible white precipitate by the action of a soln. of ammonium chloride in liquid ammonia. |
| 1956 J. S. Anderson tr. Remy's Treat. Inorg. Chem. II. ix. 474 The most important example of an ammonia addition compound is the ‘fusible white precipitate’, and important examples of mercury-substituted ammonia or ammonium derivatives are the ‘infusible white precipitate’ and ‘Millon's base’. |
| 1769 Mrs. Raffald Engl. Housekpr. (1778) 213 To make *White Raspberry Jam. |
| 1838 W. C. Harris Narr. Exped. S. Afr. xix. 184 A pair of *white Rhinoceroses opposed our descent. 1941 J. S. Huxley Uniqueness of Man viii. 184 The numerous creatures which would have become extinct but for vigorous protection..such as the..white rhinoceros. 1972 Islander (Victoria, B.C.) 9 July 2/3 In South Africa the white rhino has increased from 20 to 2,000. 1981 P. Turnbull Deep & Crisp & Even vii. 125 He stuck out like a white rhino at a tea party. |
| 1885 Geikie Text-bk. Geol. iv. viii. §2. 560 Microscopical examination shows that this ‘*white-rock’ or ‘white-trap’ is merely an altered form of some diabasic or basaltic rock. |
| 1712 Phil. Trans. XXVII. 542 A blewish Bat, in which the following Iron-Stone lyes, called the *White-Row. Ibid., A hard blackish Iron Oar, lying in small Nodules, having between them a White Substance; and from thence by the Miners called the White-Row-Grains. |
| 1875 Knight Dict. Mech., *White-rubber, caoutchouc mixed with..any white pigment [so] as to give a dead white color to it. 1887 C. A. Moloney Forestry W. Afr. 90 The white-rubber vine..grows in profusion in this part of the country. |
| [1668 *White sapphire: see sapphire 1 b.] 1884 E. W. Streeter Precious Stones & Gems (ed. 4) iii. ii. 160 The varieties of Precious Corundum ascertained to exist in the Burmese dominions are the Oriental Sapphire..the Oriental Ruby..the Opalescent Ruby, the Star Ruby, the Green, the Yellow, and the White Sapphires, and the Oriental Amethyst. 1904 L. J. Spencer tr. Bauer's Precious Stones iii. 566 Zircon and corundum (‘white sapphire’). 1942 B. W. Anderson Gem Testing for Jewellers ix. 88 Perfectly colourless corundum, usually referred to as ‘White Sapphire’, is not common in nature... Synthetic corundum..is, however, manufactured on a large scale. |
| 1744 W. Ellis Mod. Husbandman Jan. xii. 79 He lost several of his Flock by the Gripes and the *White-scour. 1897 W. Housman Cattle viii. 251 Inflammation of the stomach and bowels [of calves]..is also commonly spoken of as ‘white scour’. 1963 Times 17 May 5/7 (Advt.), Today the vet can control mortality from diseases like white scours. |
| 1859 P. P. Carpenter in Rep. Smithsonian Inst. (1860) 203 The *White Slipper [limpet] is known..by its shaggy light-green skin. |
| 1523–34 Fitzherb. Husb. §54 *White snailes be yll for shepe in pastures. 1881 E. Ingersoll Oyster-Industry 250 White-snails, small species of mollusks noxious to the oyster-beds, particularly Urosalpinx and Natica. 1854 *White softening [see softening vbl. n. 1 b]. 1873 T. H. Green Introd. Pathol. 41 White Softening..is [mostly] a chronic condition, dependent upon disease of the capillaries and small arteries, which interferes with the circulation... There is no hyperæmia, and the colour either resembles that of healthy brain-tissue, or is an opaque dirty white. |
| 1920 Chem. Abstr. XIV. 3786 Eight samples of light, medium and heavy types of petroleum distillate (*white spirit) were examd. and compared with turpentine as to boiling range. 1977 Reader's Digest Bk. Do-It-Yourself Skills & Techniques 11/2 For cleaning out oil-based paints, wash the brush in white spirit. |
| 1770 G. Cartwright Jrnl. 27 Aug. (1792) I. 30 About four miles above, are several small low islands, on which grow many fine *white, and black spruces. 1832 [see spruce n. 4 b]. 1949 Sat. Even. Post 12 Mar. 50/3 Banks..were covered with a growth of fir and white spruce. 1968 R. Kroetsch Alberta iv. 164 Heavy stands of white spruce grow on the islands in Astotin Lake—the kind of spruce that covered much of the vicinity perhaps five hundred years ago. 1977 New Yorker 9 May 95/1 He thought that white spruce and other species could live farther north. |
| 1801 *White steenbras [see steenbras]. 1905 [see mussel-cracker s.v. mussel n. 4]. 1959 [see foul-hooked s.v. foul adv. 6]. 1974 Stand. Encycl. S. Afr. X. 263/2 White steenbras... One of the best-known angling-fishes in Southern Africa. |
| 1792 Pennant Arctic Zool. II. 157 *White Stork...primaries black: the rest of the plumage white. |
| 1513 Act 5 Hen. VIII c. 2 Where..Clothes called *White Straytes be..made within the seid Countie [of Devon]. 1672 Manley Cowel's Interpr., White Straits, a kind of course Cloth made in Devonshire, about a yard and half a quarter broad, raw. |
| c 1430 Two Cookery-bks. 7 Take *whyte sugre an caste þer-to. 1562 Turner Herbal ii. 106 Take the water & put white sugar vnto it. |
| 1772 D. Macbride Meth. Introd. Physic 194 Watery tumour of a joint, usually termed *White-swelling. |
| 1610 Holland Camden's Brit. i. 185 *White tinne, that is molten into mettall. 1706 [see tin n. 1 b]. 1902 A. Findlay tr. Ostwald's Princ. Inorg. Chem. xli. 720 Besides the ordinary white tin, a grey form is also known which has a much smaller density. 1944 C. Palache et al. Dana's Syst. Min. (ed. 7) I. 127 Solid white tin (β-tin) by contact with gray tin (α-tin), alters to a gray powder (‘tin plague’). 1950, 1965 [see grey tin s.v. grey, gray a. 8 c]. 1973 J. J. Lagowksi Mod. Inorg. Chem. xi. 334 (caption) Each atom in white tin is surrounded by six other atoms arranged in a distorted octahedral structure. |
| 1843 R. J. Graves Syst. Clin. Med. xxviii. 361 The vitality of the *white tissues is low. |
| 1863 Bates Nat. Amazons ii. (1864) 38 Other grand forest-trees..were the Moira-tinga (the *White or King tree)—probably the same as, or allied to, the Mora Excelsa..in British Guiana [etc.]. 1866 Treas. Bot., White-tree, Melaleuca Leucadendron. |
| c 1640 J. Smyth Hund. Berkeley (1885) 319 The Salmon, *wheat trout or suen. |
| 1542 Elyot Dict., Amomum,..the leaues be lyke to the leaues of Withwynde or *whyte vyne. 1598 [see bryony 1]. 1607 Topsell Four-f. Beasts 188 Burne them with twigs of white vines. 1866 Treas. Bot. 1217/1 Vine, White, Clematis Vitalba. |
| 1743 J. Clayton Flora Virginia 190 Juglans alba... *White Walnuts. 1822 J. Woods Two Years' Residence Eng. Prairie 228 White-walnut, or butter-nut, and black-walnut, are not so good as the English walnut. 1916 E. T. Seton Woodcraft Man. 275 White Walnut, Oil Nut, or Butternut..rarely 100 feet high. 1958 G. A. Petrides Field Guide Trees & Shrubs 86 Butternut..also known as White Walnut, wood lighter in colour than that of its more valuable relative. |
| 1545 *White wax [see wax n.1 2 c]. 1567 Gude & Godlie B. (S.T.S.) 176 With bullis of leid, quhyte wax and reid, And vther quhylis with grene. 1815 Kirby & Sp. Entomol. x. (1818) I. 329 The wax (called Pe-la, white wax, because so by nature) begins to appear about the middle of June. |
| 1697 H. Kelsey Jrnl. 6–7 July in Papers (1929) 88, 2 hands..brought news of a *white whale drove a shore. 1834 Dewhurst Cetacea 190 Delphinapterus Beluga, or the White Whale. 1923 Beaver June 340/2 Indian reports were received that porpoises, or white whales, were..making excursions..up a certain creek. 1978 Weekend Mag. (Toronto) 22 July 16/1 White whales or belugas..become progressively lighter with age. 1985 Times 6 Mar. 8/4 Soviet seaman trying to save a large pod of white whales..trapped in the ice. |
| 1523–34 Fitzherb. Husb. §34 *Whyte wheate is lyke polerde wheate..but it hath anis, and..wyll make white breed; and in Essex they call flaxen wheate whyte wheate. 1805 R. W. Dickson Pract. Agric. I. 540 Among the numerous varieties of..wheat, the white and the red are the most esteemed in general. |
| 1463–4 Rolls Parlt. V. 507/1 Cardes for Wolle, or *Whitewyre. 1587 L. Mascall Cattle, Hogges (1596) 274 Some doe ring them [sc. hogs] with red wyar..Others doe put rings of yron, some with horse nailes or strong white wyar, in the groine of their snoutes. 1678 Lond. Gaz. No. 1302/1 It is Enacted..That no Iron Threed (commonly called White Wyer) nor Cards for Wooll, nor Card-Wyer, nor Iron-Wyer for making of Wooll-Cards, shall be Imported. |
| 1765 Newton (Lincs.) Enclosure Act 13 Ash or other *white wood rails. 1812 P. Graham Agric. Surv. Stirling. 40 The oaks are almost entire; the white wood, as it is called, or the outermost circles of the tree, only are decayed. 1825 J. Nicholson Oper. Mech. 348 The workman breaks these pieces of pots on his anvil, and mixes the pieces with charcoal of white wood. |
| 1883 J. G. Wood in Longman's Mag. Dec. 169 The terrible larva of the cockchafer, called, par excellence, the Grub, and sometimes known as the *White Worm. |
e. Miscellaneous:
White Africa, the white inhabitants of Africa; the parts of Africa ruled by white people;
white ale, a Devonshire drink made of ale with flour, milk, and other ingredients (see
Eng. Dial. Dict.);
White Army, any of the armies which opposed the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War (1918–21); also, a group which opposed the Red Guards in Finland in 1918;
White Australia, used
attrib. and absol. to designate a policy of restricting immigration into Australia to white people;
white backlash, resentment felt by white people against demands made by, or concessions made to, Black people; hence
white backlasher;
white baker,
† (
a) a baker of white bread (also as one word); (
b) a name for the spotted flycatcher;
white bath, (
a) an emulsion of oil and alkaline carbonates used in dyeing; (
b) a name for white-flowered species of
Trillium;
white bonnet [
bonnet n. 8], a fictitious bidder at an auction;
white book [
tr. med.L.
liber albus;
cf. album], a book of official records or reports bound in white;
spec. (with capital initials) the book first published in 1882 as
Annual Chancery Practice and now entitled
Supreme Court Practice;
† white broth, some kind of broth of a white or light colour (see also
broth n. 3);
white cane = white stick 3;
white chauvinism orig. U.S., a white person's excessively high regard for his own race; so
white chauvinist;
white Christmas, a snowy Christmas;
white coal (see
quot. 1913); more commonly, flowing water as a source of energy; also, electricity;
cf. white fuel (a) below;
† white colours = white flag (a);
white cooper (see
cooper n.1 1);
white death [after
black death], a name for tuberculosis (? as specially a disease of white men);
white dominion, a dominion (sense 2 b) in which the majority of the inhabitants are white;
white dwarf Astr., a small, faint, very dense star (
usu. but not necessarily white in colour) lying below the main sequence, and representing the stable phase assumed by stars having less than 1·4 solar masses when their nuclear reactions cease; (not regarded as a type of dwarf: see
quot. 1978 and
cf. dwarf n. 2 b);
white elephant: see
elephant 2;
white embroidery, white-thread embroidery on a white ground;
= white work below;
White English, term
occas. used in contrast to Black English, in the sense ‘the English of white speakers’;
white ensign (see
ensign n. 5);
White Father, (
a) a white man regarded as protecting or controlling people of another race; (
b) [
tr. F.
Père Blanc], a member of the Society of Missionaries of Africa, a Roman Catholic order founded in Algiers in 1868;
whitefellow, applied by Australian natives to a white man, in contradistinction to
blackfellow;
white flag, (
a) a flag of a white colour displayed in token of peaceful or friendly intention, desire for parley (
= flag of truce,
flag n.4 1 b), or surrender; (
b) the national flag of France before the Revolution (see 6 b); (
c) used
attrib. (with capital initials) to designate a communist group active in Burma since 1946;
white flight chiefly
U.S., the migration of white people from inner-city areas (
esp. those with a large black population) to the suburbs;
white flux, (
a) leucorrhœa; (
b) see
flux n. 11,
quot. 1826;
† white-folding, some kind of cloth;
white folk(s),
white-folk(s), applied by
U.S. Blacks to white people;
white frost, hoar-frost;
white fuel, (
a) flowing water as a source of power;
cf. white coal above; (
b) lead-free petrol;
white goods, (
a) domestic linens, as sheets, towels, etc. (now not necessarily white); (
b) electrical goods that are conventionally white, such as washing machines and refrigerators;
White Guard,
Guardist, (
a) a member of a force which fought for the Finnish government against left-wing insurgents in the civil war of 1918; (
b) a member of a counter-revolutionary force in Russia during the civil war of 1918–21; also
transf.;
white hass,
hawse,
Sc. = white pudding (a);
white hen,
fig. in proverbial
phr. a white hen's chick, etc. applied to a fortunate person or thing (
cf. sense 8);
White Highlands, an area in western Kenya formerly (1904–59) reserved for Europeans; hence
White Highlander;
white hole Astr. [
opp. black hole], a celestial object which expands outwards from a space–time singularity emitting energy, in the manner of a time-reversed black hole;
white hope,
orig., a white boxer who might beat Jack Johnson, the first Black to be world heavyweight champion (1908–15); hence, a person who, or a thing which, it is hoped will achieve much or on whom or which hopes are centred;
White Hun, a member of a nomadic people of uncertain origin, also called Ephthalites or Hephtalites, who lived in Bactria in the fifth and sixth centuries a.d.;
white hunter, a white man who hunts big game professionally;
white jazz, jazz as played by white musicians;
white joint (see
quot.);
† white joke, name of some dance;
white knight, (
a) (with allusion to a character in
Through the Looking-Glass), an enthusiastic but ineffectual person; (
b) a hero or champion;
spec. (
Stock Exchange slang) a company that comes to the aid of one facing an unwelcome take-over bid;
White Lady, (
a) a cocktail made of two parts of dry gin, one of orange liqueur, and one of lemon juice; (
b)
Austral. slang, a drink of methylated spirits, sometimes mixed with another ingredient;
white land slang, open land that is not designated for development or change of use, or on which development is not allowed (so called from its being uncoloured on planning maps);
white leach (see
leach n.1 2);
white letter Printing [
letter n.1 2 b], an occasional name for the (now) ordinary or ‘roman’ style of type, as distinct from
black-letter;
white level Television, the signal level corresponding to the maximum brightness in transmitted pictures;
white lie, (
a) see 7 b and
lie n.1 1 b; (
b) see
quot.;
white lightning slang (
orig. U.S.), (
a) inferior or illicitly distilled whisky; (
b) a kind of LSD;
white list colloq. [after
black list], a list of people or things considered acceptable;
white-loose (see
quot.);
† white mark = white n. 6;
white market [after
black market], authorized dealing in things that are rationed or of which the supply is otherwise restricted;
white mass (see
quot.);
white meter, a meter that registers off-peak consumption of electricity;
† White Moors, a nickname for the Genoese;
white mouse, (
a) an albino variety or fancy breed of the common house mouse; (
b) a name for the collared lemming,
Cuniculus torquatus, also called
snow-mouse; (
c)
fig. applied to a person of mean or despicable character;
white mule U.S. slang, a potent colourless alcoholic drink;
spec. illicitly distilled whisky;
white Negro, (
a) a Negro, or a person with Negro ancestry, who has a pale or albino complexion; (
b) a white person who defends the rights or interests of Negroes, or identifies with them; (
c)
nonce-use (see
quot. 1949);
white nigger slang (chiefly
U.S.), (
a) a derogatory term for a white person who does menial labour; (
b) a Negro who is regarded as deferring to white people or accepting a role prescribed by them; (
c) (see
quot. 1970);
white night, (
a) (
tr. F.
nuit blanche), a sleepless night; (
b) a night when it is never properly dark, as in high latitudes in summer;
white note Mus., (
a) a note with an open head, as a semibreve or minim (
opp. to
black note); (
b) a note corresponding to a white key on a keyboard;
= natural n. 7 a;
white paper, (
a) paper of a white colour (also
fig.); (
b)
techn. blank paper, not written or printed upon; (
c) an official document printed on white paper;
spec. (with capital initials) before 1940, an Order Paper of the House of Commons which was a corrected and revised version of one issued earlier the same day (a Blue Paper); (
d) (with capital initials) a government publication presented to Parliament and having white covers rather than blue ones (
usu. less bulky than those with blue covers);
esp. one outlining proposed legislation or stating policy; also
transf.;
White Paper candidate Naval slang (see
quot. 1962);
white plague, tuberculosis;
cf. white death,
scourge;
white port, port wine made from white grapes;
white post (
Paper-making), see
post n.5 1;
whitepox [see
quot. 1972], epithet of a pox-virus isolated from monkeys that is very similar to the smallpox virus;
white-print, a document printed in white on a dark ground;
white pudding, (
a) a kind of sausage made of oatmeal and suet (
cf. black pudding and
pudding n. 1); (
b) ‘a pudding made of milk, eggs, flour, and butter’ (
Cent. Dict.);
white rabbit,
White Rabbit, used with allusion to the White Rabbit in Lewis Carroll's
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), who was running because he was in danger of being late; also as
adj. and advb. phr.;
white racism, belief in the superiority of the white race, leading to antagonism towards people of other races; hence
white racist a. and n.;
White Rajah, any of the three Rajahs belonging to the English family of Brooke who ruled Sarawak between 1841 and 1941; also
transf.;
white rent (
obs. exc. Hist.), rent payable in silver money (see sense 2 b, and
cf. black mail
n. 3);
spec. in Devon and Cornwall, a rent or duty of eight pence a year payable by every tinner to the Duke of Cornwall;
white ribboner, one who wears a white ribbon as a badge of temperance; a teetotaller;
white rod = white staff;
white room, a clean and dust-free room used for the assembly, repair, or storage of spacecraft or delicate mechanisms;
white rose, the emblem, and hence (with capitals) a designation, of the House of York in the Wars of the Roses (see
rose n. 6); also adopted by the Jacobites in the 18th c.;
white rot, any of several fungal diseases of wood or living plants indicated by white patches of decay or mould (see also
rot n.1 2 c);
white rum, a colourless variety of rum;
white rust, (
a) a fungus disease of certain plants indicated by white blisters on leaves or stems,
esp. one caused by
Albugo candida affecting cruciferous plants or one caused by
Puccinia horiana affecting chrysanthemums; (
b) a white coating that forms on zinc in air, consisting of some or all of the oxide, hydroxide, and carbonate;
white sale, a shop sale of white goods and household linen;
white scourge, tuberculosis (
cf. white death above);
white settler, (
a) a white inhabitant of a non-white territory; (
b)
transf. (see
quot. 1976);
white-sewing = white-seam (
seam n.1 9);
white sheet (see
sheet n.1 1 c);
White Sister, a nun wearing a white habit;
spec. a member of the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa, founded in 1869 to assist the White Fathers, or of the Congregation of the Daughters of the Holy Ghost, founded in 1706 in Brittany;
white slave, a white person (sense 4) who is, or is treated like, a slave (
cf. slave n.1 3);
spec. a prostitute,
esp. one trapped into prostitution by others; also (with hyphen) as
v. trans., to sell or trap (a girl) into enforced prostitution,
esp. abroad; so
white slaver,
white slavery (
spec. in reference to prostitution);
white-slaving vbl. n.;
† white son, a beloved or favourite son; a boy or man who is specially favoured or petted (see 9);
white soup, soup made with white stock;
white squadron, one of the three squadrons into which the Royal Navy was formerly divided;
white squall (see
squall n.3 1 c);
white steep, a process, or liquor, used in bleaching (see
steep n.1 1, 4, and
cf. grey steep s.v. grey a. 8);
white stock, stock made with chicken, veal, or pork;
white stone, whitestone n., (
a) in
prov. phr. to mark with a white stone, to reckon as specially fortunate or happy (in allusion to the use of a white stone among the ancients as a memorial of a fortunate event); (
b) a colourless gemstone; (
c) a form of rendering;
whitestone v. trans., to whiten with stone (
cf. hearthstone n. and v.);
white stuff slang (chiefly
U.S.), morphine, heroin, or cocaine (
cf. white n. 15 e);
White Sunday, an etymologizing modification of
Whit Sunday;
white supremacism, a doctrine or the practice of white supremacy; hence
white supremacist n. and a.;
white supremacy, domination by white races over non-white,
esp. Black, races;
white suprematist rare = white supremacist n. above;
White Terror (see
terror n. 4); also
spec. a similar period in Hungary in 1919–20 and in China in the years following 1927;
white tie,
spec. a man's white bow-tie worn with a black tailcoat; also
ellipt., a man's formal evening dress including a white tie;
freq. attrib.;
white trash: see
trash n.1 4;
white war, war without bloodshed; economic warfare;
white ware, white goods or stuff,
esp. white earthenware;
white way U.S. (
usu. with capital initials), a brilliantly lit city street;
spec. (
usu. Great White Way), the part of Broadway either side of Times Square, the heart of New York's theatre district, or a similar street in any other town;
whitewear = white goods (
a) above;
white wedding, a wedding at which the bride wears a formal white dress;
white whisky, colourless whisky;
spec. (
N. Amer.) home-made or illicit whisky;
white window, a stained-glass window in grisaille (see
grisaille);
white wings fig., sails;
† white woman, name for a ‘female’ ingredient in alchemy;
white work, embroidery worked in white thread on a white ground.
| 1910 J. Buchan Prester John xxii. 353 The amnesty came..and *white Africa drew breath again. 1974 A. Williams Gentleman Traitor i. 16 The armies and police forces of White Africa. |
| 1743 London & Country Brewer iii. 195 Devonshire *White-Ale. About 60 years ago this Drink was invented at or near..Plymouth. It is brewed from pale Malt. 1806 Wolcot (P. Pindar) Tristia Wks. 1812 V. 341 Your birthplace Dodbrook deign'd to bless Famed for white ale. 1813 Vancouver Agric. Devon 390 The brewing of a liquor called white ale, is almost exclusively confined to the neighbourhood of Kingsbridge. 1879 N. & Q. 5th Ser. XI. 193/2. |
| 1918 Times 9 Apr. 6/4, The *White Army..is overwhelmingly pro-German. 1960 O. Manning Great Fortune ii. 109 It makes you look like a White Army officer. 1977 J. Cleary High Road iii. 95 He had come out of Russia, a cavalry commander in one of the White Armies. |
| 1921 Round Table Mar. 314 The *White Australia policy—the determination to keep Australia white, a home for European races. 1930 W. K. Hancock Australia iv. 77 The policy of White Australia is the indispensable condition of every other Australian policy. 1979 Guardian 5 Jan. 7/2 Mr Gough Whitlam's Labour Government abolished the ‘white Australia’ policy five years ago. |
| 1964 Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 29 July 2 Goldwater is no racist, but there's little doubt that his supporters hope to win votes from the ‘*white backlash’, the so-far unmeasured resentment among many whites to some of the negro demonstrations and riots. 1974 Spartanburg (S. Carolina) Herald 25 Apr. c2/1 He said a serious white backlash had developed against aboriginal advancement programs. |
| 1966 Economist 17 Sept. 1130/2 The result leaves ‘*white backlashers’ little choice in November: Mr Peabody, a staunch liberal.., will oppose a Negro, Mr Edward Brooke, who has won the Republican senatorial nomination. 1968 Listener 7 Nov. 625/1 The spies converge on Shaefer, and the homely white-backlashers adroitly lay them flat. |
| 1568 in W. H. Turner Select. Rec. Oxford (1880) 325 No baker, be he *white baker or browne baker. 1633 Stow's Surv. 624 The Company of White-Bakers..were a Company of this City in the first yeere of Edward the second. 1725 Lond. Gaz. No. 6379/5 Samuel Fryer,..Whitebaker. 1862 Johns Brit. Birds 625 White Baker, the Spotted Flycatcher. |
| 1857 Miller Elem. Chem., Org. (1862) xi. §2. 775 In this condition it [sc. the skin] is ready for the operation of tawing, or passing through the *white bath. 1891 Cent. Dict. s.v. Trillium, The white species [are known] as wake-robin, white bath, birthroot. |
| 1735 in R. Bell Treat. Conveyance Land (1815) 168 This too common practice of employing *white-bonnets at roups was a manifest cheat. 1815 Ibid., What is commonly called a white bonnet, that is, a person employed by the seller to raise the price, without any intention of buying for himself. 1866 Carlyle Remin. (1881) I. 205 Hazlitt..was at the Fonthill Abbey sale..‘hired to attend as a white bonnet there’, said he with a laugh. |
| 1437 Cal. Anc. Rec. Dublin (1889) 294 The *Whit Boke. 1891 Times 4 Feb. 5/3 Another Whitebook on East African affairs has been presented to the Reichstag. 1895 Law Times C. 3/1 The judge and Master Macdonell hunted through the White Book, and unearthed a rule sufficiently elastic. 1911 B. Nightingale Ejected of 1662 II. 1027 The White Book of Preston gives the following. 1965 J. Dedham Young Man's Guide to Law xiii. 150 Great industry has to be employed in really absorbing the procedure of the courts both from the ‘White Book’ (the High Court practice) and the ‘Green Book’ (the County Court practice). 1982 I. H. Jacob Supreme Court Pract. I. p. vii, It may fairly be claimed that the year 1982 is the hundredth anniversary of the White Book. |
| 1606 Dekker Seven Deadly Sins D, Heere and there (like a Prune in *White-broth) is stucke a spruice, but a meere prating vnpractised Lawyers Clarke all in blacke. 1691 Mrs. D'Anvers Academia 8 So she..In White-broath, and Canary steeps him. |
| 1973 Times 8 June 7/7 (Advt.), Nowadays it takes more than a *white cane to help blind people. 1980 D. MacKenzie Raven & Paperhangers vi. 85 There's a special place for blind men. And you get a white cane. |
| 1946 Political Affairs XXV. 935/2 The corrupting influence of *white chauvinism has operated to maintain the most harmful division in the ranks of American labor. 1951 W. Z. Foster Outl. Polit. Hist. U.S. xxxiv. 563 White chauvinism—race hatred—has been, and still is, a question of hard cash to the big capitalists and landowners of the United States. 1984 Washington Post 26 Feb. 10/1 White chauvinism in jazz writing has in large part replaced the tentative thrust toward ‘ethnomusical’ and socially aware analysis that were evident in the 60's and 70's. |
| 1951 W. Z. Foster Outl. Polit. Hist. U.S. xxxiv. 563 Much of the race prejudice that does exist among the Latin American peoples..is due to the corrupting attitudes of *white chauvinists (diplomats, tourists, and businessmen) from the United States. |
| 1857 C. Kingsley Two Years Ago III. x. 305 We shall have a *white Christmas, I expect. Snow's coming. 1913 Collier's 13 Dec. 8 (heading) A white Christmas. 1942 I. Berlin (song-title) White Christmas. 1976 Weekend Echo (Liverpool) 4–5 Dec. 1/2 The weather men say the big shiver could bring our first white Christmas for years. |
| 1885 Neepawa (Manitoba) Star 21 Aug. 2/1 Nor should those intrusted with the people's money..embezzle..the least portion of that money, under colour of black coal or *white coal, ditch contracts, or any other pretext. 1913 Weston & Crew Pitman's Dict. Econ. & Banking Terms 149 White Coal, a fanciful name given to a glacier in so far as it is a reservoir of force. 1916 Edin. Rev. Oct. 397 Envying the Italians the clear atmosphere their towns..enjoy through the use of ‘white coal’ in place of black. 1963 Daily Tel. 18 Sept. 14 All may not think electricity the best heating or cooking or even lighting agent. But it is the cleanest and simplest and deserves its title of ‘white coal’. 1971 Nat. Geographic July 25/2 Many former waterfalls now slip submissively through penstocks and turbines, and this abundant ‘white coal’ has drastically altered the country's age-old fish-forest-and-farm economy. |
| 1676 North's Plutarch, Add. Lives 84 Sebastian..commanded one of his Souldiers to hold up the *white colours at his Spears-end, in token of his surrendring. |
| 1688 Holme Armoury iii. vii. 317/2 The *White Cooper and Barrel Cooper..are two distinct Trades. 1837 Whittock, etc. Bk. Trades (1842) 162 (Cooper) The White-cooper makes all the wooden vessels required in household concerns, dairies, or private breweries. |
| 1901 Munsey's Mag. XXV. 643/2 The ‘*white death’, as this most fatal disease is called, does not seem to horrify us as it should. |
| 1966 Guardian 6 Sept. 8/4 Assuming that the crumbling process would continue, Britain would be left with the ‘*white dominions’. 1973 C. Carrington in Kipling Compl. Barrack-Room Ballads 23 After..1871, there were no British regular troops in the new ‘White Dominions’. 1977 A. Wilson Strange Ride R. Kipling v. 253 Canada was the white dominion that Kipling had known longest. |
| 1924 Monthly Notices R. Astron. Soc. LXXXIV. 322 The *white dwarfs Sirius (comes) and O2 Eridani. 1925 Nature 5 Dec. 834/1 Invoked to decide the truth of a suspicion of transcendently high density in the ‘white dwarf’ stars, it [sc. Einstein's theory of gravitation] has decided that in the companion of Sirius matter is compressed to the almost incredible density of a ton to the cubic inch. 1935 B. Russell Relig. & Sci. viii. 217 If none of these things happen first, we shall in any case be all destroyed when the sun explodes and becomes a cold white dwarf. 1969 Listener 2 Jan. 10/3 White dwarfs are stars like the Sun which have collapsed into a sphere the size of a planet. 1978 Pasachoff & Kutner University Astron. x. 283 Do not confuse the term ‘white dwarf’ with the term ‘dwarf’. The former refers to the dead hulks of stars.., while the latter refers to normal stars on the main sequence. |
| 1876 Geo. Eliot Dan. Der. II. iv. xxix. 223 Gwendolen..held a piece of *white embroidery which on examination would have shown many false stitches. 1931 A. K. Arthur Embroidery Bk. viii. 83 Bullion knots are frequently used in white embroidery. 1971 S. Levey Discovering Embroidery of Nineteenth Cent. 9 White embroidery flourished throughout the century. |
| 1974 Florida FL Reporter XIII. 3/3 Black English origins are almost entirely, if not entirely, rooted in *White English dialect usage. 1974 Newslet. Amer. Dial. Soc. Nov. 44 Intonation patterns of Black English were studied and compared with those occurring in White English and formal Black English. |
| 1879 Queen's Reg. H.M. Naval Service 19 All Her Majesty's Ships of War in Commission shall bear a *White Ensign. |
| 1835 C. F. Hoffman Winter in West I. 251 The unfortunate agent..was shot in the act of appealing to the Indians as their friend and ‘father’,—the reply being..‘We have no longer any *white father.’ 1889 R. F. Clarke Cardinal Lavigerie i. iv. 100 The White Fathers—a name given to the Algerian missioners on account of their wearing the long white robe of the Arab. 1894 Harper's Mag. Sept. 516/2 The White Father has sent me. 1969 Telegraph (Brisbane) 18 Sept. 2/2 The people we detest are the ‘White Fathers’—those who control our destiny. 1977 B. Lucas tr. De Foucauld's Lett. from Desert vii. 130 The Apostolic Prefect will probably tell him to spend a few days at Maison-Carrée, near Algiers, the mother-house of the White Fathers. |
| 1832 *Whitefellow [see budgeree a.]. 1853 C. B. Hall in T. F. Bride Lett. Vict. Pioneers (1898) 218 My black boy..showed me three or four bodies, partially concealed by logs. There were numerous tracks of horses round about. He explained the occurrence in his way—‘I believe blackfellow bimbulalee sheep all about. Then whitefellow gilbert and put 'em along o' fire.’ 1870 J. O. Tucker Mute 52 The natives, believing him to be the Spirit of their deceased King, welcomed him with every demonstration of joy; hence the well-known expression ‘Go down blackfellow, come up whitefellow’. |
| 1600 Holland Livy xxx. 765 There met him a ship of the Carthaginians, garnished with..*white flags of peace. 1695 Lond. Gaz. No. 3101/2 The Enemy hung out a White Flag, and desired a Parley. 1815 Ann. Reg., Gen. Hist. 129 A white flag was hung out as a signal that the troops..had surrendered. 1949 New Stateman 12 Feb. 147/1 The story begins last March. Then the Communists (White and Red Flag), who had already gone underground, began guerilla warfare on Government treasuries. 1959 Listener 18 June 1051/1 The so-called White Flag Communists who followed the Stalinist line. 1974 White Flag [see red flag 3 a]. |
| 1967 New Republic 22 July 19/2 School quality is a far more important factor than racial feeling..in this *white flight from desegregated schools. 1975 Political Sci. Q. XC. 675 White flight from cities has been a much discussed phenomenon in the last decade. 1978 Sci. News 23 Sept. 216 Previous studies of this so-called ‘white flight’ phenomenon have been criticized for not taking into account the type of desegregation involved and for ignoring other factors that might have induced white families to leave the central city anyway. |
| 1607 Topsell Four-f. Beasts 83 If a woman be troubled with the *white fluxe. 1827 Faraday Chem. Manip. xiii. (1842) 301 White flux is made by deflagrating a mixture of equal parts of nitre and cream of tartar. |
| c 1423 in Raine Ch. Yk. & Abps. (Rolls) III. 307 Pro xij. virgis de panno vocato *whytefalddyng. |
| 1929 W. Faulkner Sound & Fury 101 If it hadn't been for my grandfather, he'd have to work like *whitefolks. 1932 E. Caldwell Tobacco Road xv. 179 What's the matter with your automobile, white-folks? 1973 Black World May 20/1 In his essays on whitefolk, Du Bois invokes two specific historical occurrences which reflect the paradoxes, lies and hypocrisy of white civilization. 1981 A. Mackay Death on River (1983) 120 She dressed conservatively. White folks' clothes, she thought wryly. |
| 1382, 1563, 1739 *White frost [see frost n. 2]. 1780 W. Fleming Jrnl 14 Mar. in N. D. Mereness Trav. Amer. Colonies (1916) 634 Monday night there was a smart white frost. 1835 J. Martin Comprehensive Descr. Virginia 66 Our white frost is generally harmless, it being simple dew slightly congealed. 1967 White frost [see hoar-frost a]. |
| 1913 F. Soddy Matter & Energy v. 135 The ‘*white fuel’ of the Norwegian hill-sides. 1928 Daily Tel. 27 Mar. 10/7 Italy has..greater advantages for the development of ‘white fuel’, for Egypt has but one single river. 1958 New Scientist 6 Feb. 19 When the calalyst is used with ‘white’ or unleaded fuel (as on motorised trucks for indoor use in factories) this difficulty does not arise. |
| 1900 T. Eaton & Co. Catal. White Goods & Midwinter Sale 12 These prices for Shirt Waists and Wrappers are special for the *White Goods Sale only. 1943 L. I. Wilder These Happy Golden Years xxxi. 276 Busily working with the white goods, Ma and Laura discussed Laura's dresses. 1960 Economist 8 Oct. 158/1 Refrigerators, deep freezers, washing machines, clothes dryers and other so-called ‘white goods’. 1976 Which? Mar. 61/1 Electrical equipment..includes things like washing machines and fridges (what the trade calls white goods) as well as TVs and audio (which the trade calls brown goods). Specialist TV and audio shops don't normally sell white goods. 1981 Times 9 Mar. 19/6 An abiding problem for the white goods manufacturers is the high level of imports. |
| 1922 *White Guard [see Red Guard 1 b]. 1970 G. Huizer in I. L. Horowitz Masses in Lat. Amer. xiii. 454 Tapia continued to have meetings with peasants in their houses although the soldiers or ‘white guards’ sent by the Cantabria hacienda tried several times to capture him. Ibid. 497 ‘White guards’..were groups of armed men hired by the landowners [in Mexico] to fight against those peasants who petitioned for land. 1971 H. Trevelyan Worlds Apart xxiii. 267 The house was lucky to escape destruction during the Revolution, when it was said to have been for a time in the front line as a White Guard post opposite the Kremlin. 1974 J. White tr. Poulantzas's Fascism & Dictatorship iv. iii. 210 The fascist phenomenon was constantly identified with the Russian White Guards, as a strong reaction to a revolutionary situation. |
| 1951 in J. Degras Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy I. 131 A White Terror eclipsing the atrocities of the Finnish *White Guardists. 1964 V. Nabokov Defence xiii. 211 Yes, yes, I know he's a chess player... But what is he? A reactionary? A White Guardist? 1971 S. Talbott tr. Khrushchev Remembers i. 15 Our army won many important victories against our White-Guardist class enemies in the first years of the Revolution. |
| 1818 Scott Br. Lamm. xii, There is black pudding and *white-hass—try whilk ye like best. 1824 Mactaggart Gallovid. Encycl., White Hawse, a favourite pudding. |
| 1540 Palsgr. Acolastus ii. iii. L ij b, May not I..be estemed the sonne of a *whyte henne .i. maye not men..thinke, that I was borne in a good howre. 1630 B. Jonson New Inn i. iii, All..are not sonnes o' the white Hen. 1716 Poor Robin Feb. A 6, Money is a Chick of the white Hen, he that hath it, hath Fortune by the forelock. |
| 1976 P. Driscoll Barboza Credentials i. i. 24, I had seen Kenya..prosper in spite of the *White Highlanders sneering. |
| 1935 E. Huxley White Man's Country I. ix. 208 In East Africa the settlers' principal anxiety was that Indians would permeate the relatively small area of land suitable for colonisation—the ‘*white highlands’. 1957 W. M. Hailey Afr. Survey (rev. ed.) xi. 719 The reservation of the White Highlands for Europeans prevented the process of expansion by which the more populous tribes would normally have found relief from congestion. 1978 S. Naipaul North of South i. iv. 114 Soil erosion had been one of the great settler obsessions. The battle against it had become part and parcel of the battle for civilisation, providing a powerful argument for the preservation of the status quo in the ‘White’ Highlands. |
| 1971 Nature Physical Sci. 3 May 20/1 Black holes..are related in a genitive manner to ‘*white holes’, defined to be singularities from which matter and energy emerge. 1977 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 29 Sept. 22/2 There is speculation..that every black hole is joined to a ‘white hole’—a hole that gushes energy instead of absorbing it. |
| 1911 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 28 Apr. 11/4 A New York promoter has succeeded in arranging for a match between Albert Palzer, New York's most prominent *white hope, and Carl Morris, the giant locomotive engineer. 1912 I. S. Cobb Back Home 233 Judge Priest was a celebrity, holding the limelight to the virtual exclusion of grand opera stars, favourite sons, white hopes, [and] debutantes. 1919 Observer 16 Nov. 12/6 In the south, based on the Black Sea and liberally furnished with British material, Denikin and his Cossacks were the ‘white hope’ of the anti-Bolshevists. 1941 Ld. Berners Far from Madding War iii. 50 He was a composer: the white hope (thus a critic had described him) of English music. 1948 Time 5 July 40/2 Idol of the Negro race, and so popular with the whites that the old cry for a ‘white hope’ never came up, Joe Louis..was a champion the whole U.S. was proud of. 1952 M. Allingham Tiger in Smoke iv. 81 Detective Coleman had been one of Luke's white hopes. He had liked the boy for his eagerness. 1969 Daily Tel. 6 Oct. 12 In the immediate post-war years cheap and almost limitless atomic power was the white hope of a small island sadly short of raw materials. 1979 Nature 23 Aug. 638/1 Interferon is the great white hope of cancer therapy. |
| 1781 Gibbon Decl. & F. II. xxvi. 584 The *white Huns, a name which they derived from the change of their complexions. 1866 H. Yule Cathay & Way Thither I. p. liv, The Yueichi..who became known in the West as Indoscythians, and at a later date as White Huns. 1965 G. Wheeler Soviet Central Asia i. 5 In the fifth century southern Turkestan was conquered by the Ephthalites or White Huns. |
| 1945 N. Mitford Pursuit of Love xi. 90 She's happy now, isn't she, with her *white hunter? 1964 D. Varaday Gara-Yaka xiv. 124 Two white hunters lay in wait, and each shot one of the pride. 1980 G. M. Fraser Mr American xxvi. 546 He's an elephant hunter to trade—what they call a white hunter. |
| 1933 (record-title) *White jazz. 1946 R. Blesh Shining Trumpets i. 23 No heterophony in white jazz except a chaotic sort in Chicago⁓style jazz. 1950 [see schmaltz 2]. 1976 J. Berendt Jazz Bk. 11 There seem to have been white bands almost from the start. ‘Papa’ Jack Laine led bands in New Orleans from 1891. He is known as the ‘father’ of white jazz. |
| 1882 W. J. Christy Joints 32 *White Joint.—One formed with ordinary mortar as distinguished from blue mortar. Or it is made by pointing with white putty. |
| 1744 Fielding Tumble-Down Dick Wks. 1766 IV. 250 Tho' all the earth was one continued smoke, 'Twould not prevent my dancing the *White Joke. |
| 1895 M. Kingsley Jrnl. 23 May in Trav. (1897) vi. 110 The chief..bows with a jerk that causes the pantaloons to faint in coils, like the *White Knight in ‘Alice in Wonderland’. 1956 N. Marsh Off with his Head (1957) ii. 41 ‘I believe I have made a really significant discovery..’ cried Dr. Otterly with the infatuated glee of a White Knight. 1970 Times 23 Apr. 7 The Italian Communist Party..will take its members into the regional election campaign next month as white knights dealing with the joint evils of corruption and reaction. 1976 J. Philips Backlash (1977) iii. ii. 130 Woody would like nothing better than to play the white knight to my damsel in distress. 1979 N.Y. Times Mag. 30 Sept. 24/4 The Rangers' problems stemmed from the habit that..the team's general manager..had of hiring ineffectual cronies to coach the club, and then replacing them with himself when they failed—a kind of ‘white knight’ compulsion. 1981 Guardian 30 Oct. 15/1 Thomas Tilling..emerged yesterday as the white knight appointed by Berec to save the Ever Ready battery maker from the clutches of Hanson Trust. |
| 1930 H. Craddock Savoy Cocktail Bk. i. 175 *White Lady Cocktail. 1/4 Lemon Juice, 1/4 Cointreau, ½ Dry Gin. 1935 K. Tennant Tiburon 19 Two old men in the corner lying stupefied over a mixture of ‘white lady’—boiled methylated spirit with a dash of boot polish and iodine. 1952 B. Hamilton So Sad, so Fresh xviii. 117 He indicated a cocktail cabinet..and proceeded to mix two ‘White Ladies’. 1964 Telegraph (Brisbane) 24 Sept. 5/2 Aborigines..used to swill cheap wines and other concoctions like ‘White Lady’—a fiendish brew of methylated spirit and powdered milk. 1975 R. Beilby Brown Land Crying 225 ‘Ya was on the White Lady at the finish, mixin' it with Coke.’.. ‘But jees, meths'n Coca Cola.’ 1978 White lady [see sidecar 2]. |
| 1960 Guardian 14 July 8/5 How much ‘*white land’ the planning authorities have left between the limits of development shown on the town map and the beginning or inner edge of the green belt. 1971 P. Gresswell Environment 270 Open country and villages, both of which may be included in ‘white land’, have suffered. 1974 Times 19 Feb. 2/1 Mr. Rippon, Secretary of State for the Environment, should be challenged in the courts if he allows more ‘white land’ in the Worcestershire county structure plan to be used for development, a report by the county planning committee states. |
| c 1450 Brut 447 A leyche called ‘*whyte leyche’. 1573, 1750 [see leach n.1 2]. |
| c 1700 Pepys in Rollins Pepysian Garl. (1922) Pref. p. vii, The Form..of the Black Letter with Picturs, seems (for cheapness sake) wholly laid aside, for that of the *White Letter without Pictures. 1717 Hearne Collect. (O.H.S.) VI. 95 It is printing..in the white Letter, contrary to Mr. Urry's mind, who was resolved upon the black Letter and would not hear of the white. 1879 Chappell Roxb. Ball. II. 450 Two of the copies were issued by Whitwood.., one by Norris in white letter. |
| 1940 W. T. Cocking Television Receiving Equipment 298/2 (Index), *White level. 1950 Rabinoff & Wolbrecht Questions & Answers Television Engin. x. 233 The maximum white level shall be 15 per cent or less of the peak carrier amplitude. 1953 Amos & Birkinshaw Television Engin. I. i. 17 White level may be positive or negative with respect to black level. 1982 J. Goldberg Fund. Television Servicing i. 5 Television standards identify a white level and a black level of picture information. |
| 1899 J. Hutchinson in Archives Surg. X. 146 The nail..exhibits white spots in consequence [of injury]—‘*white lies’. |
| 1921 Double Dealer July 20/1 The men lean or sit on the counter and talk politics, hard times..and more enthusiastically, the devastating and withering qualities of the current ‘*white lightning’, ‘white mule’, or just plain ‘corn’, as the local moonshine whiskey is called. 1940 C. McCullers Heart is Lonely Hunter ii. iv. 119 He had a pint of bootleg white lightning. 1969 Times 9 Dec. (Taiwan Suppl.) p. ii/3 The distillery's main product is kaoliang, a potent liquor made out of Quemoy-grown sorghum and known as White Lightning. 1972 Village Voice (N.Y.) 1 June 77/3 Ellen..unfolded some tinfoil which she said contained three tabs of Owsley's original ‘white lightning’, the Mouton-Rothschild of LSD. 1975 B. Garfield Hopscotch xii. 128 It was white lightning country and the backhill bootleggers were numerous. 1979 R. L. Simon Peking Duck vi. 50 Mao tai, the Chinese version of White Lightning. |
| 1900 G. B. Shaw Let. 31 Aug. (1972) II. 182 The Labor Leader's ‘*white list’ is the final stroke—the white flag held up to Liberalism at the moment when we are on the verge of victory over it. 1939 Country Life 11 Feb. p. xxi/1 (Advt.), Furs.—Avoid those tortured to death. Buy only those named on the Fur Crusade White List. 1977 Lancet 30 Apr. 963/1 One idea is a ‘white list’ of preferred drugs or a list of excluded drugs for which the N.H.S. would not expect to pay. |
| 1857 J. Scoffern etc. Usef. Metals 344 Parts which were unsound, occasioned, apparently, by a white powder embedded in the steel: to distinguish this from the effects of imperfect welding, it was called *white-loose. Ibid., The files were without white-loose. |
| 1603 J. Davies Microcosmos Wks. (Grosart) I. 9 Thou blessed Ile, *white Marke for Envie's aime. |
| 1943 New Yorker 25 Dec. 36/2 Britons buying legally and mournfully on the *white market. 1973 Times 28 Dec. 1/4 A feature of the system would be a ‘white market’ in which unused coupons could be sold freely or bartered. |
| 1895 Atlantic Monthly Mar. 333 His *white mass,—the first mass of a young priest. |
| 1972 Times 2 Oct. 9/3 It is connected to a separate wiring circuit and an offpeak or *white meter. 1974 Ecologist Oct. 299/2 Measures such as low-tariff electricity (‘White Meter’) in off-peak periods only, have already made consumers prepared to group their demand for an intermittent supply. |
| 1642 Howell For. Trav. (Arb.) 41 As it is proverbially said, there are in Genoa, Mountaines without wood, Sea without fish, Women without shame, and Men without conscience, which makes them to be termed the *white Moores. |
| 1850 H. Melville White Jacket II. xxvi. 167 A set of sly, knavish foxes among the crew... In man-of-war parlance, they [are called] fancy-men and *white-mice. 1900 Daily News 10 Mar. 6/5 The miserable, anaemic, shifty, human white-mice. |
| 1889 H. H. McConnell Five Years a Cavalryman 60 About this time I first became acquainted with a..drink known as ‘pine-top’ or ‘*white-mule’ whiskey. 1928 Collier's 29 Dec. 8/1 What do you think about a bunch of boys and girls..stealin' a keg of white mule from a dealer? 1942 W. Faulkner Go down, Moses 156 Gets himself a whole gallon of bust-skull white-mule whisky. 1973 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 23 Feb. 37/8 At other times..the stuff would..lash out with its hind hooves at the little old wine-maker like the white mule once so respected in the Ozarks. |
| 1765 Phil. Trans. R. Soc. LV. 45 (heading) An account of the *White Negro shewn before the Royal Society. 1790 W. Wilberforce Jrnl. 5 Apr. in R. I. & S. Wilberforce Life W. Wilberforce (1838) I. vii. 264 Hard at work on Slave Trade evidence all day with ‘white negroes’, two Clarksons and Dickson. 1824 J. Doddridge Notes Settlement & Indian Wars W. Parts Virginia & Pennsylvania 52 Mulattoes..are denominated white negroes. 1838 R. I. & S. Wilberforce Life W. Wilberforce I. vii. 255 Messrs. Clarkson, Dickson, &c. jocosely named by Mr. Pitt, his ‘white negroes’. 1850 ‘M. Tensas’ Odd Leaves Life Louisiana ‘Swamp Doctor’ 76 He was one of that peculiar class called Albinoes, or white negroes. 1949 Koestler Promise & Fulfilment i. vii. 69 The Jewish Defence organization became another white negro, which changed its colour according to the political situation. 1957 N. Mailer in Dissent IV. 279 The hipster had absorbed the existentialist synapses of the Negro, and for practical purposes could be considered a white Negro. 1980 E. G. Wilson John Clarkson iv. 51 Both Clarksons were counted among the activists whom Pitt in a rare jest called the ‘white Negroes’. |
| 1837 R. M. Bird Nick of Woods I. 170 Hanging too good for him, *white niggah t'ief, hah! 1871 E. Eggleston Hoosier Schoolmaster 52 ‘Ole Miss Meanses' white nigger’, as some of them called her, in allusion to her slavish life. 1934 Esquire Feb. 96 Art Hickman and other purveyors of sweet rose to meteoric fame while white men who continued to play hot received the chauvinistic appellation of ‘white niggers’. 1965 Listener 15 Apr. 545/2 The intellectual West Indian is being told to stand up and be counted. Will he commit himself to his people or remain what our radical Negroes in the Southern United States would call a ‘white nigger’? 1970 R. D. Abrahams Positively Black vi. 135 Hippies and other recent Bohemian groups have openly proclaimed themselves ‘white niggers’ by which they seem to mean that, like blacks, they represent an alternative to the life style of majority-group American culture. 1975 Times Lit. Suppl. 7 Nov. 1320/4 Dr Marcus Foster, a black,..suggested that the children be equipped with identity passes... The unfortunate Foster was widely accused of being an Uncle Tom and a white nigger. |
| 1872 Browning Fifine xxxiii, O the knotty point—*white night's work to revolve. 1908 R. Broughton Mamma vii, The almost entirely white night she had just passed. 1960 G. Blanchet Search in North ii. 28 There was a brief pause while the sun was just below the horizon—the ‘white night’ as it is called. 1981 Times 6 June 14/3 If you go to Leningrad at this time of year you catch the celebrated ‘white nights’, when there is only a brief twilight around midnight. |
| 1959 D. Cooke Lang. of Music ii. 44 The *white-note scales on C (Ionian mode) and A (Aeolian mode) were already our C major and A minor scales. 1983 Listener 14 July 35/3 With its use of the traditional plainchant melody of the Psalm, its ‘white-note’ counter-melodies and harmonisations..it struck a fresh note after the highly-wrought complexity and chromaticism of most of Goehr's earlier works. |
| 1569 Aldeburgh Rec. in N. & Q. 12th Ser. VII. 184/2, ij quares of *whyte paper. 1680 Debates in Parl. (1681) 166 These Bills will.. make your Banishing Bill, and Association-Bill too, as ineffectual as White Paper. 1683 Moxon Mech. Exerc., Printing 394 Although the first Form be Printed off, yet Press-men..call that Heap White-Paper, till the Reteration be Printed. 1687 Lond. Gaz. No. 2125/4 Linen Rags, and other Materials for making of White Paper. 1772 Gentl. Mag. Apr. 192/1 She's fair White Paper, an unsully'd sheet. 1859 Stationers' Handbk. 27 Printing papers, sometimes spoken of in a trade sense, as ‘White papers’. 1899 Daily News 13 Mar. 5/1 An interesting White Paper has been published..giving reports from our Ambassadors and Consular officers abroad on the telephone services in the countries to which they are attached. 1906 Minutes Evidence Sel. Comm. Official Publ. 15/1 in Parl. Papers (Cd. 279) XI. 95 With regard to the White Paper, which is printed, and which is handed to Members with the notices of the day, that is printed from the same type, I presume, as the Blue Paper, which is sent to us in the morning? 1920 [see white terror below]. 1922 C. E. Montague Disenchantment viii. 115 Our rulers have continued to issue to the Press, at our cost as Blue Books and White Papers, long passages of argument and suggestion. 1924 H. B. Lees-Smith Guide to Parl. & Official Papers ii. 19 Corrections in the Blue Paper, such as putting amendments to Bills in their right order, are made during the morning and sent to the printer in time for the White Paper. 1950 Kerr & James Wavy Navy 255 These ratings had been earmarked as suitable ‘White Paper’ candidates by their Commanding Officers and recommended to the Admiralty. 1955 Times 16 June 8/5 The text of the two agreements would be published in the next few days and laid before Parliament as White Papers. 1962 Granville Dict. Sailors' Slang 132/2 White Paper candidate, candidate for a temporary (wartime) commission in the RNVR. The White Paper was passed in Parliament for a scheme of promotion for suitable ratings who had served on the lower deck for at least three months in a ship at sea in time of war. 1967 Listener 8 June 739/2, I first hastened to read President Nyerere's ‘White Paper’ on education. 1971 H. Wilson Labour Govt. xiii. 201 Some of our major commitments..had been worked out only to White Paper stage. 1978 Dædalus Fall 3 He would have been..the venerable statesman who delivered the White Paper on Defense in the postwar period. |
| 1906 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 10 Jan. 2/2 To Fight *White Plague... The tuberculosis convention..has been a great success. 1926 H. V. Morton Spell of London 68 The peril of youth, the horrible white plague. 1961 L. Mumford City in Hist. xvii. 547 As early as the eighteenth century Mercier had observed this metropolitan form of the White Plague. |
| 1723 J. Nott Cook's & Confectioner's Dict. sig. Pp. 7v, Two Gallons of *White-port Wine. 1892 Mew & Ashton Drinks of World 100 Of white Ports the best are Muscatel de Jesus, [etc.]. 1920 G. Saintsbury Notes on Cellar-bk. vi. 88 White Port..I think nearly deserving of the curse above pronounced on sparkling claret. 1978 M. Walker Infiltrator xiii. 144, I was given a glass of white port. |
| [1972 Gispen & Brand-Saathof in Bull. World Health Org. XLVI. 591/1 The parental Copenhagen virus..continually gives rise to a few white⁓pock forming virus particles by mutation. Ibid., The occurrence of wild white poxvirus in healthy monkeys cannot be explained by the instability noted above.] 1977 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 26 Feb. 530/2 Viruses as yet indistinguishable from variola virus were isolated from the kidneys of six healthy monkeys and two rodents; these have been termed ‘*whitepox viruses’. 1979 Nature 24 May 295/2 Vaccinia, cowpox and camelpox viruses lack continuous transmissibility in man, but the situation with monkeypox virus and whitepox virus deserves further comment. |
| 1919 H. Leverage White Cipher 84 He memorized the details like a draughtsman reading a *white-print. 1967 White-print [see Ozalid]. |
| 17.. ‘Get up and bar the door’ vii. in Herd Scot. Songs (1776) II. 159 And first they ate the *white puddings, And then they ate the black. |
| 1930 R. Lehmann Note in Music iv. 154 ‘I must hurry, I must hurry,’ she said... Like the *white rabbit, he thought. 1979 S. Brett Comedian Dies v. 52 Her pretty little face looked anxious... ‘Oh, um. If you'll excuse me...’ And she scuttled out, all White Rabbit. 1982 J. Elliott Country of her Dreams xii. 144 Off he went, scuttling.., White Rabbit late for a date. |
| 1970 Rep. 20th Ann. Round Table Meeting Linguistics & Lang. Stud. 221 Because such quasi-militants feel that Negro dialect is inherently ‘bad’ (as did conservative Negroes before them), they regard it as a product of *white racism. |
| Ibid., They see any attempt to describe and scientifically record Negro dialect as nothing more than a *white-racist exploitation of Negroes. 1973 Black Panther 17 Mar. 6/3 No charges were pressed against any of the club-wielding, epithet-sputtering white racists clearly because the Navy felt that only ‘they’ (Blacks) had been in the wrong. 1977 M. Walker National Front 9, I despise nationalism, whether it be British, White Racist or Martian. |
| 1909 Baring-Gould & Bampfylde (title) A history of Sarawak under its two *White Rajahs, 1839–1908. 1966 New Statesman 1 July 21/1 Her role is somewhere between a White Rajah and a VSO. 1974 Radio Times 19 Mar. 37/3 The story of the last White Rajah of Sarawak. |
| 1463 Bury Wills (Camden) 24, xijs. of *white rente. 1630 J. Doddridge Dvtchy of Cornewall 99 White rent..is a dutie payable yeerely by euery Tynner in the County of Deuon,..that is, of euery Tynner 8.d. 1664 Spelman Gloss., Quietus redditus..Vulgo Quit rente, qui & alias White rente nuncupatur, quod in denariis & argento penditur. 1717 Northumbrian Docts. (Surtees) 61 A white-rent of 13s. 6d. from two or three freeholds in Woodburne. |
| 1887 Voice (N.Y.) 15 Dec. 2/2 Brother Finch endeared himself to all *White Ribboners. 1970 ‘O. Henry’ Trimmed Lamp 32 The ‘demon rum’—as the white ribboners miscall whiskey. 1974 Daily Tel. 3 July 17/7 The National British Women's Total Abstinence Union, which has 6,000 members, still issues a white ribbon bow in the form of a badge to its followers, who are known as the ‘white ribboners’. |
| 17.. Song in Farquhar Beaux-Strat. iii. iii, *White rods are no trifles, I'm sure, Whatever their bearers may be. 1876 Bancroft Hist. U.S. I. x. 347 A chancery court and a court-leet, sergeants and white rods. |
| 1961 Aeroplane & Astronautics CI. 684/1 The new factory incorporates the latest production methods and in view of its development of special-purpose connectors—particularly in the micro⁓miniature field—a ‘*white room’ is being fitted out so as to give the cleanest manufacturing conditions for this type of component. 1965 Life 5 Nov. 111/4 The capsule itself will be stored in the pristine solitude of a ‘white room’ near Cape Kennedy until Schirra and Stafford are ready to fly again. 1970 N. Armstrong et al. First on Moon iii. 66 The other five members of the close-out crew were in the ‘white room’ on swing arm No. 9. |
| 1558 G. Cavendish Poems, etc. (1825) II. 99 Adewe, my sonne Edward! sprong of the royall race Of the *wight rose and the red. 1622 Bacon Hen. VII 4 The People, who..had beene fully made capable of the clearnesse of the Title of the White-Rose or House of Yorke. 1716 Hearne Collect. (O.H.S.) V. 237 Divers were destroyed by the Georgian Party, only for having white Roses, a way by which..the Cavaliers distinguished themselves. 1887 F. M. Crawford Saracinesca i, Men flocked to the standards of the White Rose of York. |
| 1906 M. C. Cooke Fungoid Pests of Cultivated Plants 155 *White rot of Grapes..occurs on the fruit, leaves, and rarely on twigs. 1946 Cartwright & Findlay Decay of Timber iv. 48 Decompositions of wood by fungi is of two main types, which have been described as brown rots and white rots respectively... In a white rot all the components of the wood, including the lignin, are decomposed. 1951 Dict. Gardening (R. Hort. Soc.) III. 1426/1 White Rot of onions due to the fungus Sclerotium cepivorum shows when..affected plants are seen to have rotten roots while the base of the bulb is covered with a very white, fluffy mycelium. 1969 G. Becker in Krishna & Weesner Biol. Termites I. xi. 356 A large number of mold fungi, white-rot fungi, and bacteria can produce toxic substances. |
| 1962 S. Wynter Hills of Hebron xvi. 198 With the money he bought bags of rice..and even a few bottles of *white rum. 1972 Times 19 Aug. 10/1 White rum promises to be the spirit of the 1970s. |
| 1848 M. J. Berkeley in Jrnl. R. Hort. Soc. III. 266 Nothing can have been more general than the *white rust..which is so common on cruciferous plants. 1932 Iron Age Jan. 232/1 A common corrosion found on the surface of zinc-coated products has been called by the industry ‘White Rust’. 1937 F. D. Heald Introd. Plant Path. vii. 97 The greatest development of the white rusts is during the cool periods of early spring. 1976 A. R. L. Chivers in L. L. Schrier Corrosion (ed. 2) I. iv. 156 Zinc which has been properly aged..is safe against white-rust formation. 1981 Daily Tel. 16 May 19/2 Several cases of white rust..have been found in imported plants [sc. chrysanthemums]. |
| 1914 Photo-Era XXXIII. 168 (caption) A spring *white-sale. 1970 New Yorker 10 Oct. 158/2 The season of White Sales. |
| 1909 Osler in Klebs Tuberculosis 7 Throughout the world the most intense interest has been stimulated in the fight against the *white scourge. |
| 1937 K. Blixen Out of Afr. iv. 298 Kitosch was a young Native in the service of a young *white settler of Molo. 1969 J. Mander Statis Society vi. 154 A White Settler minority, as in South Africa, can usually keep power if it is sufficiently determined and has a monopoly of arms. 1972 [see holiday home s.v. holiday n. 4 a]. 1974 Daily News (Tanzania) 13 Sept. 1/2 The three-day occupation of the main radio station here by the criminals (white settlers) protesting at the independence settlement, and the subsequent fighting and looting in the city's African suburbs, have shattered Portuguese hopes of a peaceful and amicable transfer of power in the colony. 1976 Listener 3 June 716/2 ‘White settlers’ is a phrase now in common currency in the Highlands to describe refugees from that well-known rat race who buy any old wreck of a cottage, spend a lot of money on it and live there, many of them, for a month or so in the summer. |
| 1922 C. Orr Kate Curlew ii, She learned *white-sewing from an aunt. |
| 1594 Zepheria xxxvi. F 2 b, Thy face being vayld, this pennance I award, Clad in *white sheet thou stand in Paules Churchyard. 1901 Rhys Celtic Folklore I. v. 351 Old people still living remember men and women clad in white sheets doing penance publicly in the churches of Man. 1659 in Morris Troubles Cath. Foref. (1872) i. vi. 316 Seventy-two..were Nuns of the Choir, the rest *White Sisters and Lay-sisters. 1890 E. H. Barker Wayfaring in France vi. 305 It was a White Sister kneeling and praying. 1908 Catholic Times 6 Mar. 11/2 We have in the Katanga many missions..and everywhere are White Fathers, religious women (White Sisters). 1957 G. D. Kittler White Fathers vii. 81 The answer, Lavigerie realized, would be in establishing the White Sisters. |
| 1789 Deb. Congress U.S. 13 May (1834) 350 He hoped it would comprehend the *white slaves as well as black, who were imported from all the jails of Europe. 1807 Southey Lett. from England II. xxxviii. 150 Let us leave to England..the distinction..of being the white slaves of the rest of the world, and doing for it all its dirty work. c 1833 M. T. Sadler in Mem. (1842) 405 Their tender hearts were sighing As negro wrongs were told, While the white slave lay dying Who gained their father's gold! 1840 T. Gordon tr. W. Menzel's Ger. Lit. IV. 87 Seume..like many thousands of ‘white slaves’, that is, German subjects, who were then sold by their princes to the Dutch or English, had been shipped for the colonies. 1889 [see slave n.1 3]. 1913 C. Pankhurst Great Scourge p. viii, Regulation of vice and enforced medical inspection of the White Slaves. 1917 A. Huxley Let. May (1969) 125, I am safe from these body-snatchers, kidnappers, baby killers and white slave traffickers, the Recruiters. |
| 1970 ‘J. Quartermain’ Diamond Hook xvi. 99 If you stop me.., I'll white-slave Jessie to South America. 1977 D. Wheatley Young Man Said x. 147 Was she white-slaved—a fate which befell more than a few girls of her type and class in those days? |
| 1922 Times Lit. Suppl. 27 Apr. 278/2 The villain of the piece..is a *white slaver [= procurer]. |
| 182. G. Smeaton Doings in London 83 Here is, indeed, the British *white slavery [viz. of dressmakers]; only, with this difference, that their more fortunate sufferers [sic] in the West Indies have regular food and appointed hours of work. 1835 Edin. Rev. July 463 These representations of the ruinous effects of what has been called white slavery..were..embodied in Mr. Sadler's famous Factory Report. 1857 W. Acton Prostitution 94 The natural question, ‘Why does not this woman escape from this white slavery?’ is best answered by other queries—Whither can she fly? What can she do? |
| 1960 D. Lessing In Pursuit of English i. 16 A father-figure..with a [sic] strong *white-slaving propensities. |
| 1541 Coverdale Confut. Standish (1547) l ij b, Maruaill not..though (whan I se you folowe your vnholy mother..) I call you..her owne *whyte sonne. a 1553 Udall Royster D. i. i, Be his nowne white sonne. 1601 R. Yarington Two Lament. Trag. iv. vi. G 4 b, Young Allenso your white honnie sonne. a 1613 Overbury A Wife etc. (1630) P 8 b, The Deuill cals him his white sonne. |
| 1723 J. Nott Cook's & Confectioner's Dict. sig. L8v, To make White Cullis... Use this with *White Soops and Ragoos. 1813 Jane Austen Pride & Prej. I. xi. 123 As for the ball..as soon as Nicholls has made white soup enough I shall send round my cards. 1977 J. Aiken Five-Minute Marriage vi. 95 Next week Mrs. Andrews really must start making white soup; and I must write..to Gunter's about the ices. |
| 1666 Lond. Gaz. No. 85/4 To steer after the Enemy, with the *White Squadron in the Van, and the Blew in the Rear. 1840 [see blue a. 5 b]. 1891 [see red a. 16 d]. |
| 1815 J. Smith Panorama Sci. & Art 546 The *White Steep. This part of the process is precisely the same with the last [sc. grey steep], except that the sheep's dung is omitted in the composition of the steep. |
| 1853 R. Riddell Indian Domestic Econ. 63 Take three quarts of good *white stock. 1905 Tasty Dishes (new ed.) 10, 3 pints of white stock. 1960 Good Housek. Cookery Bk. (rev. ed.) 196/1 Vegetable water or stock made from bones should be used for gravies and brown sauces; milk, or milk and white stock for white sauces. |
| c 1645 Howell Lett. i. i. xiii. (1890) 38 You are one..whose Name I have mark'd with the *whitest Stone. 1748 Smollett Rod. Rand. lii, ‘God be praised! a white stone!’..he alluded to the Dies fasti of the Romans, albo lapide notati. 1861 H. W. Bristow Gloss. Mineral. 320/2 When cut for jewelry, it [sc. rock crystal] is called by lapidaries, ‘white stone’. 1885 W. T. Hornaday Two Yrs. in Jungle xxvii. 318, I have marked that day with a white stone as being the one on which I ate my first durian. 1937 Burlington Mag. Nov. p. xix/2 A gold ring with a telling portrait carved in whitestone. 1941 F. Thompson Over to Candleford vi. 98 She kept the whole of the fair-sized house cleaned and polished and whitestoned. 1963 Times 11 June 15/4 The whitestone and glass frontage gives the impression of verticality. 1978 R. Doliner On the Edge (1979) iv. 62 A whitestone Italian Renaissance mansion on Sixty-third Street. |
| 1908 J. M. Sullivan Criminal Slang 27 *White stuff, morphine. 1915 G. Bronson-Howard God's Man i. iv. 39 There's quite a trade in laudanum... The ‘White Stuff's’ on the up-and-up too. 1953 W. Burroughs Junkie (1972) xiii. 129, I had never been able to drink before when I was on the junk, or junk-sick. But eating hop is different from shooting the white stuff. You can mix hop and lush. 1967 N. Lucas C.I.D. x. 135 Luckier still not to have graduated from pep pills to ..‘The White Stuff’..heroin. |
| 1655 Vaughan Silex Scint. ii. (title) *White Sunday. |
| 1958 Listener 12 June 967/1 The steady propulsion towards *white supremacism. 1979 Daily Tel. 5 Sept. 6 He [sc. Ian Smith] is well aware that the noisy and active minority who regard him as the totem of white supremacism will call for his blood. |
| 1959 New Statesman 30 May 751, I have wondered..whether there was any link between the demagogues of Notting Hill and *white supremacists elsewhere. 1961 Spectator 20 Jan. 65 A way of life..that is white-supremacist. 1964 L. Nkosi Rhythm of Violence ii. i. 26 The White Supremacists will not get away so easily! 1977 Times 30 Aug. 10/3 Mr John Tyndall, the National Front's founder and chairman..describes himself as ‘an unashamed white supremacist’ and regards whites as intellectually..superior to blacks. 1981 Times 17 Mar. 12/3 The real contest in next month's general election will be between the ruling National Party and the white supremacist parties to the right of it. |
| 1902 A. Tourgée Let. 15 May in T. L. Gross Albion W. Tourgée (1963) viii. 143 It is the very highest form of blasphemy to claim that the idea of ‘*white supremacy’ and the later barbarism which demands race-subjection or extermination is pleasing to God or conformable to the religion of the Man of Nazareth. 1931 W. S. Churchill in J. C. Squire If it had happened Otherwise 179 Upon the rebound from this there must inevitably have been a strong reassertion of local white supremacy. 1981 Times 18 Mar. 8/6 The Rustenburg constituency..represents some of its most far-right votes for white supremacy. |
| 1958 Times Lit. Suppl. 11 July 386/3 They imply that, had the Supreme Court said ‘desegregate by the so-and-so of this year’, and had President Eisenhower backed the Courts to the limit, the Southern *white suprematists would not have ‘fought back’, or would only have done so unsuccessfully. 1971 J. Bishop Days of Martin Luther King, Jr. iv. 332 A few White Suprematists said that there was no doubt that the bombing was the work of..a militant black who wanted to incite his people to riot. |
| 1920 Glasgow Herald 7 May 9 A report on the alleged existence of a ‘*White Terror’ in Hungary has been issued in the form of a White Paper. 1965 J. Ch'ên Mao & Chinese Revolution (1967) i. v. 125 The less hesitant Wuhan declared the CCP [sc. Chinese Communist Party] outlawed on that fateful day of 13 July 1927. The so-called White Terror thus began and chaos ensued. 1970 G. Huizer in I. L. Horowitz Masses in Lat. Amer. xiii. 480 The secretary-general..noted the continuous struggle of the CNC [sc. National Confederation of Peasants] against the ‘white terror’ of landowners and caciques. 1977 Time 21 Mar. 26/2 In the 1930s leftists lived in constant fear of the so-called White Terror imposed by the [Chinese] Nationalist secret police. 1980 Times Lit. Suppl. 25 Apr. 471/2 After the collapse of [Béla] Kun's regime, the White Terror raged, but Korda somehow survived unharmed. |
| 1853 ‘C. Bede’ Adventures Verdant Green vii. 65 You are going to wine with Smalls this evening... I suppose you would go properly dressed,—*white tie, kids, and that sort of thing, eh? 1930 M. Kennedy Fool of Family xx. 208 ‘Is it a grand party?’ asked Caryl nervously... ‘I mean is it white tie?’ explained Caryl. ‘Oh yes, of course it's white tie.’ ‘Then it is grand.’ 1936 [see black tie s.v. black a. 19]. 1942 D. Powell Time to be Born iv. 83, I will give a white-tie dinner for eighteen. 1981 Ld. Harewood Tongs & Bones i. 29 The glamour of the occasion impressed me greatly—I was probably the only person in the boxes not in a white tie. |
| 1932 H. G. Wells Work, Wealth & Happiness xii. 607 Tariff obstruction at this higher level is, for all practical ends, war at the frontier, *White War, the chronic as distinguished from that acute form in which invasion, bomb, bayonet and poison gas play leading parts, which more emphatic sort of warfare we may call Red War. 1939 New Statesman 3 June 878/2 Armament firms will boom more conspicuously, but the promised Government limitation of earnings or special taxations of ‘whitewar’ profits must deprive the armament or semi-armament equities of their usual attraction. |
| 1577 in Ellis Orig. Lett. Ser. iii. IV. 26 Theire canvas and *whiteware. 1776 J. Wedgwood Let. 14 Jan. (1965) 189 But for Usefull China, or such a white⁓ware as you mention, I must beg a longer time. 1843 Ecclesiologist II. 31 A mean and unecclesiastical composition Font, containing a white-ware hand basin. |
| 1909 Sat. Even. Post 20 Feb. 8/1 Start at Fifty-ninth Street and walk down what the Manhattanese call the ‘Great *White Way’. 1920 S. Lewis Main Street 416 Then, glory of glories, the town put in a White Way. 1933 E. Caldwell God's Little Acre xi. 170 Out of the grey darkness of the building the girl suddenly appeared in the glow of the whiteway lights. 1939 Florida (Federal Writers' Project) ii. 259 Central Avenue [in St. Petersburg], the city's ‘White Way’, extends rulerlike for 7 miles across the peninsula. 1977 Washington Post 30 Jan. e–1/1 When dancer-choreographer Merce Cunningham..appeared..at New York's Minskoff Theater recently..one might have supposed..that the Great White Way had suddenly gone avant-garde. 1980 N.Y. Times 10 Dec. a–14/2 ‘Welcome to Boston's Great White Way,’ the sign on a theater marquee pridefully proclaimed. |
| 1905 H. G. Wells Kipps i. ii. 40 Cretonnes, chintzes, and the like; serviettes, and all the bright hard *whitewear of a well-ordered house. |
| 1949 N. Mitford Love in Cold Climate i. xvi. 170 She was awfully old for a *white wedding, thirty or something terrible. 1962 Daily Herald 8 Jan. 6/8, I had a lovely white wedding... Given my time again I would cheerfully splash everything on one. 1976 Listener 29 July 105/1 Young black girls [in Soweto] now demand white weddings with lots of bridesmaids and floating veils. |
| 1901 G. Parker Right of Way 23 Rouge Gosselin flung off his glass of *white whisky, and threw after it another glass of cold water. 1957 W. Faulkner Town xxiv. 357 Ratliff..took a pint bottle of white whiskey from inside his shirt. 1968 ‘N. Blake’ Private Wound i. 17 Padraig, another Jamieson for Mr. Eyre. The white whiskey, mind, this time. Did y'ever try Jamieson's white? |
| 1913 Eden Anc. Glass 45 A small *white window, made up of quarries (panes) decorated in brown enamel let in a white and coloured border. |
| 1813 Byron Corsair i. iii, How gloriously her gallant course she [sc. the ship] goes! Her *white wings flying. 1880 Black (title) White Wings: a Yachting Romance. |
| 1610 B. Jonson Alch. ii. iii, Your red man, and your *white woman, With all your broths, your menstrues, and materialls. |
| 1863 Mrs. Gaskell Sylvia's L. III. i. 2 Sitting in the dark parlour..and doing ‘*white work’, was..wearying to her. 1936, etc. [see Mountmellick]. 1967, 1975 White work [see Richelieu]. |
12. Combinations.
a. with other
adjs. (or
ns.) of colour (
= whitish, light), as
white-blue,
white-brown,
white-fiery,
white-green,
white-grey,
† white-hoar,
white-lyard (
q.v.),
white-red,
white-russet,
white-yellow. Also with other
adjs., as
white-hot,
q.v.;
white-sick (see
quot.).
| 1608 Sylvester Du Bartas ii. iv. Schism 935 The Eastern winde drives on the roaring train Of *white-blew billows. |
| 1643 Baker Chron., James (1653) 615 Course paper, commonly called *white brown paper. 1825 T. Hook Sayings Ser. ii. Passion & Princ. v, A small packet of white-brown paper. |
| 1876 G. M. Hopkins Wreck of Deutschland xiii, in Poems (1967) 55 Wiry and *white-fiery and whirlwind-swivellèd snow. |
| 1578 Lyte Dodoens v. xii. 561 The white garden Succorie..hath..*whitegreene leaues. |
| c 1533 in Ellis Orig. Lett. Ser. i. II. 32 Some faire white, or *white gray palfreies. 1556 Chron. Grey Friars (Camden) 28 The gray freeres chaungyd their habbetts from London rossette unto whytt gray. 1812 J. Smyth Pract. Customs (1821) 218 The hair of the wild Cat is very long, and of a fine white grey. |
| 14.. Guy Warw. (Camb.) 4775 Hys fadur ys olde and *whyte⁓hore. |
| 1577 Googe Heresbach's Husb. 116 The best colours [for a horse]..the rone, the *white lyard, the bay, the sorell. 1607 [see lyard]. |
| a 1618 Sylvester Woodman's Bear xlv, Red-white hils, and *white-red plaines. 1601 Holland Pliny xxxii. x. II. 446 A peece of cloth of a *white russet colour. |
| 1797 Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) XIII. 538/2 The female [oyster] *white-sick (as they term it), having a milky substance in the fin. |
| 1922 Joyce Ulysses 179 He.. felt a slack fold of his belly. But I know it's *whiteyellow. |
b. with
vbs. and
pples., usually in instrumental sense
= ‘with white’, ‘in white (clothing or covering)’, or with complemental force
= ‘so as to be, become, or appear white’: as
white-paint vb.;
white-bordered,
white-churned,
white-clad,
white-clothed,
white-enamelled,
white-flattened,
white-flecked,
white-heaped,
white-marked,
white-painted,
white-pointed,
white-quartered,
white-salted (see
herring 1 b),
white-set (
set ppl. a. 6 a),
white-spotted,
white-spread,
white-tinned;
white-flowing,
white-glittering,
white-looking,
white-shining,
white-steaming,
white-waving adjs.;
white-burning a., applied to clay that gives a white product when fired;
white-dominated a., dominated by white people.
| 1830 Withering's Brit. Pl. (ed. 7) IV. 303 *White-bordered Cupping Peziza. |
| 1965 G. J. Williams Econ. Geol. N.Z. xx. 359/2 The clays so formed are plastic, refractory and *white-burning. 1967 M. Chandler Ceramics in Mod. World ii. 49 A small proportion of more plastic white-burning clay is sometimes included. |
| 1823 Coll. Poems (ed. Joanna Baillie) 259 The *white-churn'd waters. |
| 1886 Cornh. Mag. Sept. 249 *White-clad Arabs. |
| 1896 A. Hope Phroso ii, Groups of *white-clothed women. |
| 1960 *White-dominated [see question mark 2]. 1981 Listener 31 Dec. 810/1 Blacks tend to regard journalists as part of the white-dominated, Establishment-prone media. |
| 1915 ‘Bartimeus’ Tall Ship iii. 51 Forward, the *white-enamelled bulkhead was pierced by two entrances. 1918 D. H. Lawrence New Poems 47 Oh, masquerader, With a hard face white-enamelled. |
| 1922 Joyce Ulysses 86 Nose *whiteflattened against the pane. |
| 1900 M. E. Wilkins Parson Lord, One Good Time 196 Her black..gown was..*white-flecked..with..winged seeds of passed flowers. |
| 1827 G. Darley Sylvia 5 Beautiful Glen of the *white-flowing torrent! |
| 1729 Savage Wanderer i. 75 *White-glittering ice, chang'd like the topaz, gleams, Reflecting saffron lustre from his beams. |
| 1922 Joyce Ulysses 39 Belly without blemish, bulging big, a buckler of taut vellum, no, *whiteheaped corn. |
| 1870 P. M. Duncan Blanchard's Transf. Insects 121 A flabby,..*white-looking grub. |
| 1887 Amer. Naturalist XXI. 581 The *white-marked tussock-moth. |
| 1897 Mag. of Art Sept. 268 He whitewashed and *white-painted what was coloured. |
| 1828 P. Cunningham N.S. Wales (ed. 3) II. 157 Four *white-painted tarpaulings. |
| 1948 D. Ballantyne Cunninghams 165 The dark blue sea, *white-pointed by the wave tops. 1962 *White-quartered [see pink-scrolled s.v. pink a.1 C. b]. |
| 1889 Conan Doyle Micah Clarke xxviii, The pile of bodies..with their twisted limbs and *white-set faces. |
| 1851 J. G. Whittier Benedicite in Nat. Era 16 Oct. 166/5 God's love—unchanging, pure, and true—The Paraclete *white-shining through His peace. a 1973 J. R. R. Tolkien Silmarillion (1977) 262 A city white-shining on a distant shore. |
| 1776 Withering Bot. Arrangem. 606 *White spotted Willow Lady-cow. 1903 Conrad & Hueffer Romance i. iv, A red, white-spotted handkerchief. |
| 1918 D. H. Lawrence New Poems 26 Daisies that waken all mistaken *white-spread in expectancy. |
| 1921 R. Graves Pier-Glass 26 And a *white-steaming mist Obscures desire. |
| 1521–2 Rec. St. Mary at Hill (1904) 313 A brase of iron for the sacryng bell that was *whight tynned. |
| 1822 Campbell Song of Greeks 47 Our maidens shall dance with their *white-waving arms. |
c. Parasynthetic Combinations, chiefly adjectives in
-ed2, unlimited in number (many occurring in specific designations of animals or plants), as
white-aproned,
white-armed,
white-barked,
white-barred,
white-beaked,
white-bellied,
white-billed,
white-bloomed,
white-blossomed,
white-bodied,
white-bosomed,
white-breasted,
white-cheeked,
white-coated,
white-coned,
white-crested,
white-curtained,
white-faced,
white-fanged,
white-flannelled,
white-flowered,
white-frilled,
white-frocked,
white-fronted,
white-gaitered,
white-glanced,
white-gloved,
white-handed,
white-hatted,
white-hooded,
white-hoofed (
white-hooved),
white-horned,
white-jacketed,
white-leaved,
white-legged,
white-lipped,
white-listed (
list n.3 5),
white-maned,
white-mantled,
white-naped,
white-necked,
white-plumed,
white-polled,
white-railed,
white ribbed,
white-ribboned,
white-rinded,
white-robed,
white-roofed,
white-rumped,
white-shafted (
shaft n.2 4 b (
a)),
white-sheeted,
white-shouldered,
white-sided,
white-skinned,
white-sleeved,
white-smocked,
white-souled,
white-spatted,
white-stockinged,
white-stoled,
white-strawed,
white-throated,
white-tied,
white-tiled,
white-tilted [
tilt n.1],
white-tipped,
white-tongued (
cf. 10),
white-toothed,
white-topped,
white-tufted,
white-tusked,
white-veiled,
white-veined,
white-waistcoated,
white-walled,
white-wanded,
white-whiskered,
white-wristed, etc., etc.;
white-arsed slang, a term of abuse;
white-backed, having a white back;
† in early use (of a document), blank on the back, unendorsed;
white-backed vulture, an African vulture of the genus
Pseudogyps;
white-blooded, having light-coloured or colourless blood, without red corpuscles, as most invertebrate animals;
white-breasted nuthatch, a North American nuthatch,
Sitta carolinensis;
white-crossed, bearing the figure of a white cross;
white-crowned, having a white crown;
white-crowned sparrow, a North American sparrow,
Zonotrichia leucophrys;
white-eyed, having white eyes; having the iris of the eye white, or having white plumage around the eyes;
white-favoured, wearing white favours (
favour n. 7 b);
white-floured, with the face whitened by flour;
white-hearted, (
a) faint-hearted, timid, cowardly (
cf. sense 5 and
white-livered); (
b) pure-hearted, saintly (
cf. sense 7);
white-horsed, (
a) bearing the figure of a white horse; (
b) having or driving a white horse or horses;
white-looked, having a white or pale look or aspect;
white-mouthed, (
a) having the mouth white with foam, foaming; (
b) having a white mouth or lip, as a shell;
† white-rigged (
whyt reged), white-backed (see
rigged a.
1);
white-throated sparrow = Peabody; see also white-eared, etc.; also
white-elephantine, of the nature of a white elephant; uselessly splendid;
white-flesher, a name for the ruffed grouse, from its light-coloured flesh or meat.
| 1868 J. G. Whittier in Atlantic Monthly 3 Jan. 1 Bare-armed..she came, *White-aproned, from her dairy. 1977 J. Gillis Killers of Starfish x. 76 A white-aproned waiter appeared..bearing little plates of cheese squares. |
| 1718 Pope Iliad xv. 98 The *white-arm'd Goddess. |
| 1922 Joyce Ulysses 587 He's a *whitearsed bugger. 1975 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 18 May 1/1 Delegates..sat in shocked silence when an Indian leader accused them of being ‘white-arsed Liberals’. |
| 1466 Stonor Papers (Camden) I. 87 Ye must gete lenger day of his parte, and þer for y sende yow þe writte *white backed. 1783 Latham Gen. Syn. Birds II. i. 82 White-backed Thrush. |
| 1884 R. B. Sharpe Layard's Birds S. Afr. (ed. 2) 794 African *White-backed Vulture... General colour deep brown. 1964 D. Varaday Gara-Yaka ix. 78 The sitters were white-backed vultures, the most common in this area [by the Limpopo]. They were so dark brown in parts that they looked dirty, but their lighter parts appeared immaculate in contrast. |
| 1779 U.S. Mag. (Philadelphia) Feb. 85 The lowly man⁓grove fond of wat'ry soil; The *white barked gregory rising high in air. 1948 White-barked [see Engelmann]. |
| 1869 Newman Brit. Moths 16 The *White-barred Clearwing (Sesia Sphegiformis). |
| 1811 Shaw Gen. Zool. VIII. 13 *White-beaked Hornbill. |
| 1611 Cotgr., Carpion, a kind of.. *white-bellied Trout. 1774 Phil. Trans. LXV. 271 The hirundo melba, or great white-bellied Swift of Gibraltar. 1872 Coues Key N. Amer. Birds 82 White-bellied Nuthatch. |
| 1782 Latham Gen. Syn. Birds I. ii. 553 *White-billed Woodpecker. 1802 *White-blooded [see red-blooded s.v. red a. and n.1 14 a]. 1835–6 Todd's Cycl. Anat. I. 165/1 The natural position of the white-blooded worms is by the side of those with red blood. |
| 1922 Blunden Shepherd 43 From *white-bloomed plum. |
| 1911 J. Masefield Everlasting Mercy 79 That *white-blossomed pond. |
| 1904 W. B. Yeats King's Threshold 55 It was praise of that great race That would be haughty, mirthful, and *white-bodied. |
| 1793 Coleridge Compl. Ninathoma 8 They blessed the *white-bosom'd Maid. |
| 1756 P. Browne Jamaica (1789) 470 The *white-breasted Guinea-Hen. 1808 A. Wilson Amer. Ornithol. I. 41 The White-breasted Nuthatch is common almost everywhere in the woods of North America. 1946 G. Stimpson Bk. about Thousand Things 491 The white-breasted cormorant is largely responsible for the production of the vast guano deposits on the islands off the coast of Peru. 1972 L. Hancock There's a Seal in my Sleeping Bag i. 14 Searching for the white-breasted sea eagle. 1980 Northeast Woods & Waters Dec. 23/2 Hairy and downy woodpeckers, white-breasted nuthatches..attack the suet on the old pear tree. |
| a 1593 Marlowe Ovid's Elegies ii. xviii, *White-cheekt Penelope knewe Vlisses signe. 1781 Pennant Hist. Quadrup. 331 White-cheeked Weesel. |
| 1838 Dickens O. Twist xv, A *white-coated, red-eyed dog. 1866 Howells Venetian Life xii. 168 The white-coated sentinels. |
| 1920 Blunden Waggoner 40 Smoke's light blue pennants coil From *white-coned oasts. |
| 1678 Ray Willughby's Ornith. 112 *White crested Parrot. 1848 C. C. Clifford tr. Frogs of Aristophanes 34 Whitecrested morions. 1856 Lever Martins of Cro' M. lviii, The wind-shaken foliage and the white-crested waves. |
| 1632 Lithgow Trav. vii. 329 *White cross'd. |
| 1836 R. King Narrative of Journey II. 196 The fringilla leucophrys, or *white-crowned finch..perched on the topmost branch. |
| 1839 W. B. O. Peabody Rep. Ornithol. Mass. 32 The *White-crowned sparrow..is one of the finest of this family of birds. 1894 B. Torrey Florida Sketch-bk. 235, I discovered..perched at the top of the oak, tossing back his head and warbling—a white-crowned sparrow. 1975 Nature 18 Sept. 182/1 The Californian scrub habitat is occasionally devastated by fire, so that the white-crowned sparrow population is reduced to a few birds living in isolated patches of surviving scrub. 1977 New Yorker 19 Sept. 123/1 The twisted fig tree, the almond, not yet white-crowned, the slow tendrils of grape reaching into the sky are companions for a time. |
| 1914 D. H. Lawrence Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd i. i. 3 At the back is a *white-curtained window. |
| 1959 Economist 28 Mar. 1152/1 The *white elephantine palace by the lake at Geneva may be good enough for the foreign ministers. 1971 A. Sampson New Anat. of Britain xvii. 335 Sir John Hill..had applied quite drastic economies to its white-elephantine operations [sc. those of the Atomic Energy Authority]. |
| 1783 Latham Gen. Syn. Birds II. ii. 475 *White-eyed Warbler. 1831 Audubon Ornith. Biogr. I. 328 The White-eyed Flycatcher,..Vireo Noveboracensis. 1833 Tennyson Pal. Art lx, White-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood. |
| 1595 Shakes. John ii. i. 23 That *white-fac'd shore. 1781 Pennant Hist. Quadrup. 82 White-faced Antelope. 1856 Stanley Sinai & Pal. vi. 255 The white-faced hill..is the ‘Blanche Garde’ of the Crusading chroniclers. 1898 ‘H. S. Merriman’ Roden's Corner i, The children, white-faced and melancholy. |
| 1952 C. Day Lewis tr. Virgil's Aeneid xi. 254 His head was helmeted in a wolf's mask Whose gaping mouth with its *white-fanged jaws served for a visor. |
| 1850 Tennyson In Mem. Concl. 90 The time draws on, And those *white-favour'd horses wait. |
| 1884 Harper's Mag. July 230/1 *White-flannelled cricketers. |
| 1831 Sir J. Richardson Fauna Bor.-Amer. II. 342 Tetrao umbellus... Ruffed Grouse... *White Flesher. |
| 1925 E. Sitwell Troy Park 21, I saw the *white-floured zanies go. |
| 1634 T. Johnson Merc. Bot. 40 *White flowred Rush-grasse. 1842 Tennyson Godiva 63 The white-flower'd elder-thicket. |
| 1837 Carlyle Fr. Rev. i. iv. iv, Gilt-edged *white-frilled individuals. |
| 1891 Hardy Tess ii, The *white-frocked maids. |
| 1768 Pennant Brit. Zool. II. 450 *White Fronted Wild Goose. 1908 E. J. Banfield Confessions of Beachcomber i. iii. 98 White-fronted Heron, Notophoyx novæ-hollandiæ. 1909 A. E. Mack Bush Calendar 23 Birds breeding in September... Ephthianura albifrons. White-fronted chat. 1955 E. Pound Classic Anthol. i. 60 Chariots, rank on rank With white-fronted horses. 1971 Country Life 27 May 1292/3 The famous Wexford Slobs, main winter headquarters of the Greenland race of white-fronted geese. |
| 1922 Joyce Ulysses 558 His nag, stumbling on *whitegaitered feet, jogs along the rocky road. |
| 1930 Blunden Poems 290 Those *white-glanced pools. |
| 1712–14 Pope Rape Lock v. 13 Why round our coaches croud the *white-glov'd Beaux? 1897 Flandrau Harvard Episodes 318 The big, white-gloved policeman at the door. |
| 1588 Shakes. L.L.L. v. ii. 230 *White handed Mistris, one sweet word with thee. 1634 Milton Comus 213 O welcom pure-ey'd Faith, white-handed Hope. 1828 Stark Elem. Nat. Hist. I. 60 White-handed Lemur.—Inhabits Madagascar. |
| 1835 Dickens Sk. Boz, Last Cab-driver, A brown-whiskered, *white-hatted, no-coated cab⁓man. |
| a 1617 Bayne On Eph. i. (1643) 8 Such *white-hearted Christians, who are ashamed of their Master. 1865 Burritt Walk to Land's End 407 If the painter were a devout, white-hearted man. |
| 1900 W. S. Churchill in Morning Post 17 Feb. 8/1 *White-hooded, red-crossed ambulance waggons. 1927 A. Clarke Son of Learning ii. 38 The Abbot said There is a barrel of white-hooded ale Here. |
| 1832 Tennyson Œnone 50 A jet-black goat *white-horn'd, *white-hooved. |
| 1832 J. Bree St. Herbert's Isle 5 War..her *white-horsed banner furls. 1872 Calverley Fly Leaves, Morning i, The hour when white-horsed Day Chases Night her mares away. |
| 1910 W. J. Locke Simon the Jester xxiii. 323 *White-jacketed waiters darting to and fro. 1980 H. R. F. Keating Murder of Maharajah xiii. 156 White-jacketed Goan bearers. |
| 1822 Hortus Anglicus II. 465 Chinese *White-leaved Nettle. |
| 1716 Gay Ep. to Earl Burlington 16 Brentford,..For dirty streets and *white-legg'd chickens known. 1848 Dickens Dombey xxxvii, As he rode away upon his white-legged horse. |
| 1841 Florist's Jrnl. (1846) II. 78 Oncidium leucochilum, (*white-lipped). 1920 W. J. Locke House of Baltazar xxii, She replied, white-lipped: ‘I'll never forgive you till I'm dead!’ |
| 1859 Tennyson Merlin & V. 788 The tree that shone *white-listed thro' the gloom. |
| 1690 Lond. Gaz. No. 2596/4 He is a short thin-faced *white-look'd Man. |
| 1642 in J. Wilson Ann. Hawick (1850) 53 Ane foir meir, *quhyt mainet and quhyt taillet. 1883 W. Whitman Daybks. & Notebks. (1978) II. 319 The sea-beach and surf—its myriad ranks like furious white-maned racers, urged by demoniac emulation to the goal, the shore. 1955 E. Pound Classic Anthol. iv. 212 White-maned black stallions Pull with due order. |
| 1825 Scott Betrothed iv, The *white-mantled Welshmen. |
| 1629 Quarles Argalus & P. iii. Wks. (Grosart) III. 283/1 Whereat the angry Knight..forsooke His *white-mouth'd Steed. 1639 G. Daniel Ecclus. xliii. 64 The white-mouth'd Billowes of y⊇ vnsounded Deepe. 1815 Burrow Elem. Conchol. 200 Voluta æthiopica, white-mouth'd Melon. |
| 1932 Discovery July 232/2 The *white-naped ravens and the mountain buzzards swing overhead. 1975 New Yorker 24 Mar. 34/2 The white-naped crane, fifteen hundred left, fifty in zoos. |
| 1912 J. Stevenson-Hamilton Animal Life Afr. xvii. 299 The ravens are represented by the *white-necked raven (Corvultur albicollis) in the south..of the Ethiopian region. 1965 G. B. Schaller Year of Gorilla vii. 161 The most regular visitors to our meadow were a pair of white-necked ravens, lovely birds with iridescent black plumage and a striking white collar around the neck. 1968 Sunday Mail Mag. (Brisbane) 8 Sept. 6/1 Only two species of seals now live on the southern Australian coast-line, namely the white-necked hair-seal [etc.]. |
| 1627 P. Fletcher Locusts ii. iv, As when the angry winds with seas conspire, The *white-plum'd hilles marching in set array Invade the earth. 1915 S. Lee Life Shakesp. xii. 225 A white-plumed helmet. |
| 1922 Joyce Ulysses 537 Staggering Bob, a *whitepolled calf, thrusts a ruminating head..through the foliage. |
| 1909 H. Begbie Cage iv, *White-railed cattle-pens. |
| c 1711 Petiver Gazophyl. viii. 80 Small *white rib'd Barbadoes Limpet. |
| 1885–94 R. Bridges Eros & Psyche Nov. xi, Taking his fair *white-ribbon'd herald's wand. |
| 1568 Wills & Inv. N.C. (Surtees 1835) 293 One *whyt reged cowe. |
| 1874 M. Collins Frances I. 214 Under a *white-rinded birch. |
| 1625 Milton Death Fair Infant 54 That crown'd Matron sage *white-robed Truth. 1816 Wordsw. Ode, ‘Imagination—ne'er before content’ 76 The white-robed choir. 1893 W. Sharp in Mem. (1910) 214 A white-robed Bedouin herding goats. |
| 1863 M. E. Braddon Eleanor's Vict. i, The fruitful orchards and *white-roofed cottages. |
| 1782 Latham Gen. Syn. Birds I. ii. 544 *White-Rumped Black Cuckow. |
| 1832 Rennie Butterfl. & M. 230 The *White Shafted Plume [Moth] (Pt[erophorus] tetradactylus). |
| 1881 E. F. Poynter Among the Hills II. 317 The still, *white-sheeted meadows. 1892 E. Reeves Homeward Bound 209 We found the street..blocked up with white-sheeted figures. These were Arab..ladies escorting an intending bride..to the bath. |
| 1781 Latham Gen. Syn. Birds I. i. 190 *White-Shouldered Shrike. 1870 Bryant Homer I. i. 32 Juno the white-shouldered smiled. |
| 1588 Wills & Inv. Durh. (Surtees) II. 33 One *white sided why. 1864–5 Wood Homes without H. xiii. 234 That [nest] which is made by the White-sided Hill Star. |
| 1523–34 Fitzherb. Husb. §68 A white horse, so that he be not al *white-skynned aboute the mouthe. 1579–80 North Plutarch, Agesilaus (1595) 656 They scorned their bodies, because they saw them white skinned, soft, and delicate. 1851 Schoolcraft Amer. Indians 164 Their white-skinned, auburn-haired, and blue-eyed progeny. |
| 1802 Wordsw. Valley near Dover 4 Boys..In *white-sleeved shirts. |
| 1922 Joyce Ulysses 102 The *whitesmocked priest came after him tidying his stole with one hand. 1973 M. Amis Rachel Papers 186 There—round-eyed, white-smocked and spotless—was Rachel. |
| 1874 J. G. Whittier Sumner in Memorial to Charles Sumner 100 He never brought His conscience to the public mart; But lived himself the truth he taught, *White-souled, clean-handed, pure of heart. 1902 G. W. E. Russell Londoner's Log-Book iii. 40 Sir William Harcourt as the white-souled champion of spiritual religion. |
| 1922 *White-spatted [see slew-foot]. 1934 Dylan Thomas Let. 14 Jan. (1966) 93 The white-spatted representatives of a social system that has, for too many years, used its bowler hat for the one purpose of keeping its ears apart. |
| 1916 E. Pound Lustra 48 Her *white-stockinged feet. 1957 J. Agee Death in Family iii. xvii. 284 Catherine stood..looking at the skirt and at her white-stockinged feet. |
| 1790 Wolcot (P. Pindar) Rowland for Oliver etc. 30 To clasp with kisses sweet his *white-stol'd Maid. |
| 1805 R. W. Dickson Pract. Agric. I. 539 The *white-strawed wheat takes its name..from the colour of its ear. |
| 1776 Pennant Brit. Zool. II. pl. xcviii, *White throated duck. 1859 Geo. Eliot A. Bede xviii, A white-throated stoat..had run across the path. |
| 1811 A. Wilson Amer. Ornithol. III. 51 *White-Throated Sparrow..[winters] in most of the states south of New England. 1865, etc. White-throated sparrow [see Peabody]. 1977 New Yorker 5 Sept. 23/3 Dozens of white-throated sparrows..have appeared among the cattails. |
| 1848 A. H. Clough Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich i. 5 The Tutor..*White-tied, clerical. 1972 A. Roudybush Sybaritic Death (1974) ii. 5 Tail-coated, white-tied and silk-hatted men. |
| 1924 G. B. Stern Tents of Israel xiii. 182 I've wanted things, too... Hundreds of baths; baths in *white-tiled rooms, and not skimping the hot water. 1978 T. Gifford Glendower Legacy (1979) 53 An ancient wino was mopping one corner of the long, narrow, white-tiled floor. |
| 1939 F. Thompson Lark Rise i. 2 The baker's little old *white-tilted van. |
| 1872 Coues Key N. Amer. Birds 184 The outer feathers *white-tipped. |
| 1637 Rutherford Let. to Parishioners 13 July, A heavie doom is for the liar and *white tongued flatterer. |
| 1609 Dekker Gull's Horn-bk. Proem. 5 The *whitest-toothd Blackamoore in all Asia. 1870 Bryant Homer I. xi. 345 As when a hunter cheers His white-toothed dogs against some lioness. |
| 1805 R. W. Dickson Pract. Agric. II. 639 The..*white topped,..and the Dutch turnip. 1867 Morris Jason ii. 624 The white-topped billows. |
| 1650 W. How Phytol. Brit. 1 *White Tuffted Wormwood. 1872 Coues Key N. Amer. Birds 302 White-tufted Cormorant. |
| 1820 Shelley Hymn Merc. xcvi, The wild *White-tusked boars. |
| 1856 Mrs. Browning Aur. Leigh i. 81 The *white-veiled, rose-crowned maidens. |
| c 1711 Petiver Gazophyl. vii. 61 Common *white-veined Butterfly. 1828 Miss Mitford Village Ser. iii. Lost & Found, A rich trail of the white-veined ivy, which crept..over the ground. |
| 1838 Dickens O. Twist ii, The *white-waistcoated gentleman. |
| 1816 Byron Prisoner of Chillon 339, I saw the *white-wall'd distant town. 1958 Punch 21 May 670/3 Dunlop white⁓walled tyres, white pedals, and white pump. 1985 A. McCandless Burke Foundation i. 4 White-walled houses with red-tiled roofs. |
| 1812 L. Hunt in Examiner 25 May 321/2 Any *white-wanded Lord at a levee. |
| 1819 Stephens in Shaw Gen. Zool. XI. 56 *White-whiskered Pigeon. 1916 Cullum Men who wrought x, The white-whiskered face of his host. |
| c 1611 Chapman Iliad xx. 110 *White-wristed Iuno. |
d. with
ns., forming
adjs. (or phrases used
attrib.) in senses (
a) ‘of, pertaining to, or consisting of (a) white ―’, as
white-brick,
white-duck,
white-flower,
white-linen; (
b) ‘resembling (a) white ―’, as
white-dough,
white-loaf,
white-rag,
white-sand,
white-satin; (
c) ‘having or characterized by (a) white ―’ (equivalent to parasynthetic
adjs. in
-ed: see c), as
white-berry,
white-eyelid,
white-nose,
white-underwing (see
underwing 2);
white-bead bandstring, name for a species of coral resembling a string of white beads;
white-blood disease (
cf. white blood in 11 d)
= leukæmia;
white hart silver (see
quot. 1658);
white-leaf, applied to a species of frog with white spots;
white-shoe slang (chiefly
U.S.), effeminate, immature;
white telephone, (of a film) telling an unrealistic story set in elegant surroundings;
white-wall, (of a tyre) having white sidewalls. See also
white-ear, -line, -skin
adjs.| 1696 Plukenet Almagestum Bot. Wks. 1769 II. 118 Corallina fistulosa Jamaicensis,..Nostratibus *White Bead Bandstring dicta. |
| 1814 Lewis & Clark Trav. Missouri xxvi. (1815) III. 124 *Whiteberry honeysuckle. |
| 1866 Aitken Pract. Med. II. 69 That the ‘*white-blood’ disease proceeded from a primary affection of the spleen and lymphatic glands. |
| 1909 H. Begbie Cage v, A little *white-brick cottage. |
| 1886 Buck's Handbk. Med. Sci. III. 275/2 Agaricus castus, *White dough mushroom. |
| 1849 *White duck [see duck n.3 3]. 1925 H. Crane Let. 19 Aug. (1965) 214 White undershirt and loose white duck pants. 1966 in Islands (N.Z.) (1978) Aug. 93 White⁓duck curtains..Hang at the windows. |
| 1781 Pennant Hist. Quadrup. I. 189 *White-Eyelid Monkey.. The upper eyelids of a pure white. |
| 1818 Keats Endym. i. 669 Honey cells, Made delicate from all *white-flower bells. |
| 1594 Camden Britannia (ed. 4) 150 Ipsa prædia quæ illi tenuerunt ad hanc usque diem quotannis mulctæ nomine pecuniam in fiscum regium persoluunt, quæ *White hart Syluer..appellatur. 1658 Phillips, Blacklow Forrest , Called The Forrest of Whitehart from a very beautifull Whitehart, which King Henry the third..taking great care to spare, was killed by T. de la Linde, which so incensed the King, that he set a perpetual Fine upon the Land, which at this day is called Whitehart silver. |
| 1802 Shaw Gen. Zool. III. 127 *White-leaf Frog... Its colour is rufous above, variegated..with milk-white spots. |
| 1756 F. Home Exper. Bleaching 26 Lye which has been used to white linen, called *white-linen lye. |
| 1813 Vancouver Agric. Devon 161 The land sown..with the tankard and early *white loaf turnip. |
| 1781 Pennant Hist. Quadrup. I. 190 *White Nose Monkey. 1882 *White-rag Worm [see lurg]. |
| 1822–7 Good Study Med. (1829) I. 326 Earthy or *white sand calculi. |
| 1749 B. Wilkes Eng. Moths etc. 21 The *white-satin moth. |
| 1957 J. D. Salinger Zooey in New Yorker 4 May 62/2 Phooey, I say, on all *white-shoe college boys who edit their campus literary magazines. Give me an honest con man any day. 1974 G. Jenkins Bridge of Magpies vi. 85 What sort of white⁓shoe captain are you? 1975 N.Y. Times 22 Sept. 33/1 Covert operations can be stripped from the CIA... So can such monkey business as dropping simulated poison cannisters in the New York subways—the games of white-shoe boys who never grew up. |
| 1958 Oxf. Mag. 22 May 462/2 Then from Italy, which had hitherto only produced ‘*white telephone’ films, came this simple, humble and extremely moving story. 1975 New Yorker 5 May 24/3 This is an icy high-minded white-telephone movie. |
| [1749 B. Wilkes Eng. Moths etc. 23 The spotted red and *white under⁓wing moth.] 1909 Westm. Gaz. 9 Dec. 4/2 The common ‘white underwing’ moths. |
| 1953 L. Z. Hobson Celebrity viii. 116 A Buick Roadmaster... Fully equipped, radio, heater, *white wall tyres. 1965 Punch 20 Oct. 567/2 Then I shall buy this year's model, too, my beloved,..with whitewall tyres and a cigar-lighter. 1978 Listener 2 Feb. 158/2 When film makers go ‘period’, as they did for Chinatown, the bulky Buicks and Oldsmobiles have to be lovingly rebuilt, white-wall tyres, teeth-like radiator grills and bonnet ‘ventiports’, almost from scratch. |
e. ns. in which the second element denotes a distinctive part or attribute of that which is denoted by the whole word:
white-back, local name for (
a) the canvas-back duck; (
b) the white poplar (from the colour of the under side of the leaves); (
c) collectors' name for a species of moth (see
quot. 1832);
white-bark, local name for various trees with white bark (see
quots.);
white-breech,
tr. L.
pygargus,
pygarg 1;
† white-choker slang, a clergyman (
cf. choker 2); so
whitechokerism;
† white-cloak, ?
= white monk;
white-comb, a form of favus attacking the combs of fowls;
white-eye, name for various birds, either having a white iris, as the white-eyed pochard (
Nyroca ferruginea) and the white-eyed fly-catcher (
Vireo noveboracensis), or having white plumage around the eyes, as the species of the genus
Zosterops, also called
silver-eye;
white-front, the white-fronted goose,
Anser albifrons;
white-hat, (
a) one who wears a white hat (in
quot. 1693, as
quasi-proper name); (
b)
U.S. Naval slang, an enlisted man; (
c)
slang (
orig. U.S.), a good man; a hero;
white-hood, a regent member of the senate of the University of Cambridge (
obs. exc. Hist.);
white-leg, the disease
phlegmasia dolens (see
phlegmasia);
white-nose = white-nose monkey: see 12 d (
c);
white point, collectors' name for a moth (
Leucania albipuncta) having a white dot on each of the fore wings;
white-root, the herb Solomon's seal, from its white creeping rootstock;
white-rump, (
a) the wheatear,
Saxicola œnanthe; (
b) the Hudsonian godwit,
Limosa hæmastica;
white-sides,
white-spot, collectors' names for species of moths (see
quots.);
white-spur, title of a class of esquires who wore silvered spurs;
white-stocking, one who wears white stockings; in
quot. applied to a horse with white legs;
white-straw, name for a variety of wheat;
white-tip, an artificial fly;
white-top, (
a) a N. American species of bentgrass,
Agrostis alba (
cf. red-top 2); (
b) an Australian tree, the Flintwood (
Eucalyptus pilularis);
whitewall, a white-wall tyre (see sense 12 d above);
white-wig, one who wears a white wig. See also
whitebeard, -feather, etc.
| 1814 Alex. Wilson Amer. Ornith. (1832) III. 128 Canvass-back duck..on the Potowmac [they are called] *white-backs. a 1825 Forby Voc. E. Anglia, White-back, the white poplar, Populus alba. So called from the whiteness of the under side of the leaves. 1832 Rennie Butterfl. & M. 199 The White-back (Y[ponomeuta] pruniella). |
| 1700 Plukenet Mantissa Opera 1769 III. 113 Lappula Althæoides Americana..*White-Barke, Barbadensibus vulgo. 1889 J. H. Maiden Useful Pl. Australia 411 Cupania semiglauca,..White Bark. Ibid. 421 Elæocarpus cyaneus,..White Bark. |
| a 1661 B. Holyday Juvenal (1673) 216 Trypherus..Carves..th' Hare, Boar, the *White-Breech too, The Scythian Phesant,..And the Getulian Goat. |
| 1903 A. H. Lewis Boss xxi. 292 It's that same Reverend Bronson who gives Melting Moses th' office to dog me. I'll put Mr. *Whitechoker onto my opinion of th' racket. 1912 A. Bennett Matador of Five Towns 100 You belong to that Methody lot... I seed you talking to them white-chokers. |
| 1866 J. R. Lowell Let. 10 Apr. (1894) I. 361, I don't understand your English taste for what you call ‘respectability’ (I should call it ‘*whitechokerism’), thinking, as I do, that the one thing worth striving for in this world is a state founded on pure manhood. |
| 1621 Lodge Summary of Du Bartas ii. 22 The *white Cloakes, the Carmes, The Augustines, the Bernardines, the Iacobins, the Cordeliers. |
| 1854 Poultry Chron. II. 40 A list of diseases..Apoplexy, *white comb, cramp, [etc.]. |
| 1848 Gould Birds Australia IV. 81 Zosterops Dorsalis,..Grey-backed Zosterops; *White-eye. 1862 Johns Brit. Birds 625 White-eye, the Nyroca Pochard. |
| 1912 E. T. Seton Arctic Prairies 277 Honkers, *White-fronts and Ducks. |
| 1693 C. Mather in G. L. Burr Narr. Witchcraft Cases (1914) 284 That spirit by them [sc. the Newfoundlanders] called *White-Hat, who ordinarily appears on the Shore, in a White-hat..a little before some dangerous Tempest. 1956 E. N. Rogers Queenie's Brood 241 There's a white hat out here who has gone crazy. 1975 Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 28 Feb. 5/2 Laver's the last of the white hats (the good guys who wear the white hats in cowboy movies). 1975 W. Safire Before the Fall iii. vii. 191 Nixon and Haldeman clung to the original game plan..against the urging of..Garment, and other ‘white hats’. 1978 Guardian Weekly 15 Jan. 18/2 His judgments of the men he dealt with... The white hats are Truman [etc.]. A prime villain is Britain's postwar foreign secretary. |
| 1764 Ann. Reg., Chron. 58 [Cambridge] There appeared among the black-hoods..placet, 103... Among the *white hoods the proctors accounts differed. |
| 1811 R. Hooper Lexicon-Medicum (new ed.) 615/2 Phlegmasia dolens... By the Germans it is called Œdema lacteum, and by the English the *white leg. 1860 Mayne Expos. Lex., Phlegmatia Dolens..the disease white-leg. 1899 [see milk leg s.v. milk n. 10 a]. 1939 M. Spring-Rice Working-Class Wives v. 122 She is very anæmic, has ‘whiteleg’, constipation and piles. 1976 Lancet 27 Nov. 1197/2 Iliac-vein thrombosis or ‘white leg’ affects the left side more commonly than the right. 1982 P. Barker Union Street 250 After our May was born she never walked properly again. She had what they called the white leg. |
| 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1824) II. ix. 157 The seventh [monkey] is the Moustoc, or *White Nose. |
| 1869 Newman Brit. Moths 475 The *White-point (Leucania Albipuncta). |
| 1578 Lyte Dodoens i. lxix. 102 *White roote or Salomons seale is of two sortes. |
| 1797 T. Bewick Brit. Birds I. 229 The *White-rump. Wheatear. 1817 Shaw Gen. Zool. X. 568 The White-rump has a very pretty song. 1888 G. Trumbull Names of Birds 209 Limosa hæmastica..[called] at West Barnstable, White-rump. |
| 1832 Rennie Butterfl. & M. 177 The *White Sides (P[eronea] albicostana). |
| Ibid. 56 The *White Spot (Gr[aphiphora] albimacula). Ibid. 144 The White Spot (M[acaria] unipunctata). Ibid. 148 Ennychia..The White Spot (E. octomaculata). |
| 1600 Camden Britannia (ed. 5) 140 Rex..armigeros creat collum torque S.S. vel sigmatico argenteo, & candidis, & argentatis calcaribus exornans, vnde hodie in occidentalibus regni partibus vocantur *Whitespurres ad discrimen Equitum auratorum qui auratis calcaribus vti solent. |
| 1706 Lond. Gaz. No. 4219/4 A Plate to be run for,..by Galloways, not exceeding 13 hands and half high, (the Guilford *White-Stockings excepted). |
| 1697 Rector's Bk. Clayworth (1910) 121 *White-straw & Joysting. 1805 R. W. Dickson Pract. Agric. I. 539 The white-strawed wheat.. in other counties bears the appellation of the Kentish white-straw. |
| 1867 F. Francis Bk. Angling xii. 379 The *White Tip..is a standard Tweed pattern. |
| 1819 Warden United States II. 8 The grasses are: White clover, *white top and red top. 1889 J. H. Maiden Useful Pl. Australia 502 Eucalyptus pilularis,..a Mountain Ash of Illawarra.., Willow, or White Top..(New South Wales). |
| 1958 Autocar 31 Oct. 675 (caption) Bentley Flying Spur, sans fins, sans *whitewalls, sans tinsel. 1968 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 5 Feb. 26/5 (Advt.). Hardtop, big 6 with automatic, radio and whitewalls. 1978 Detroit Free Press 5 Mar. c7/2 (Advt.), A built-in Scuff Bar that helps keep whitewalls white. |
| 1673 Dryden Marr. à la Mode Prol., *White-Wig and Vizard make no longer jar. |
f. with
ns., forming
vbs. (chiefly
nonce-wds.):
white-breast;
white-ball, to clean with a ball of whiting;
white-mail, to seize or appropriate like
blackmail, but for a good purpose;
white-tooth, to show one's white teeth at. See also white-line v.
| 1780 Mirror No. 93 ¶12 The servants had their liveries new *white-ball'd. |
| a 1930 D. H. Lawrence Mod. Lover (1934) 11 The fallow flickered over with pink gleams of birds *white⁓breasting the sunset. |
| 1861 Reade Cloister & H. lii, He spent much of his gains..in..choice drugs, and would have so invested them all, but Margaret *white-mailed a part. |
| 1876 A. J. Evans Through Bosnia iii. 89 A dusky Ethiopian maiden *white-toothing us in the most coquettish fashion. |
g. white-like a., whitish; somewhat pale.
| 1608 Phil. Trans. XX. 379 The Petroleum which is found in Italy is a white-like Spirit of Turpentine. 1893 Stevenson Catriona xxii, She looked white-like as she beheld the bursting of the sprays. |
Add:
[11.] [e.] white smoker Oceanogr., a sea-bed vent (see *
smoker n. 2 f) which ejects water rich in white particles.
| 1980 Earth & Planetary Sci. Lett. XLVIII. 2/2 The ‘*white smokers’ have plumes of hydrothermal fluids issuing from distinct chimneys at rates of tens of centimeters per second and temperatures of 100–350°C. 1982 Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington XCV. 781 During ALVIN Dive 1214 to the East Pacific Rise geothermal vent area at 21°N in the Pacific Ocean off western Mexico four specimens of a large eunicid polychaete were collected at the base of a white smoker. |
Add:
[12.] [d.] white-knuckle colloq., (
orig. N.Amer.), (
esp. of a fairground ride) causing or supposed to cause fear or suspense of such intensity that one's knuckles whiten in an anxious grip; also (of a person), experiencing or showing such fear.
| 1976 Business Week 26 July 119/2 A less extreme, cheaper, and yet often effective course for the ‘*white knuckle’ passenger is to join a fairly new type of therapy group devoted to taking the fear out of flying. 1982 N.Y. Times 11 Apr. v. 5/3 Stadler salvaged a stroke with a two-foot birdie putt at the fifth, but it was whiteknuckle time again at the seventh, where he saved par from a bunker. 1985 Times 7 June 27/6 Wonderworld would eschew the ‘white knuckle’ rides but there would be thrills in another mode. 1986 Woman's Day (Melbourne) 25 Aug. 35/2 All you white-knuckle flyers will understand why Bob..put his private jet on the market..when the plane lost an engine and had to make an emergency landing. 1992 Caravan Mag. Sept. 36/3 It has the ususal array of rides, offering everything from the white-knuckle thrills of the Rattlesnake roller-coaster and the Tempest, in which passengers are suspended upside down. |
So
white-knuckled a., having white knuckles; (
transf. and
fig.) tense from barely contained emotion,
esp. fear or suspense.
| 1973 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 8 Sept. 8/6 He meets local editors, goes on talk shows, flies *white-knuckled in bumpy bush planes. 1989 Daily Tel. 16 Sept. 8/2 [They] open the gate for a white-knuckled sailor in a fat rented boat, who shrieks orders at his wife as she nips ashore with the bow rope. 1993 Saturday Night (Toronto) June 53/2 It felt like an airplane about to crash. The 180 students..focused on the teacher with white-knuckled concentration. |
white-label, designating a music recording for which the fully printed commercial label is not yet available, and which has been supplied,
usu. with a plain white label, before any general release of the recording, either for promotional purposes or as a limited-edition pressing to test or stimulate the market.
| 1927 Gramophone Sept. 139/1 The new *white label pressings arrived just in time for me to take them to Paris. 1984 Southern Rag No. 22. 30/1 We managed to get hold of an advance white-label copy of this one just as we were going to press. 1991 New Musical Express 7 Dec. 7/2 Bumper double dose of chart hits and obscure white label only dance tunes. |
▸
slang.
big white telephone n. (and variants) a lavatory bowl. Originally and chiefly in
to talk to Ralph (also God, etc.) on the big white telephone and variants: to vomit into a toilet (
cf. ralph v.).
| 1977 UNC-CH Campus Slang (Univ. N. Carolina, Chapel Hill) (typescript) Apr. 4 Talk to Ralph on the big white telephone, to vomit. 1985 N.Y. Times 22 Sept. vi. 16/2 Such activity is described as laughing at the carpet, talking to Ralph on the big white phone or..the technicolor yawn. 1987 K. Lette Girls' Night Out (1993) 98, I ran back to the squat, hung my head over the toilet and talked to God on the big white telephone. 1990 Independent (Nexis) 2 Dec. 32 It's useful to know that when someone asks the way to a big white telephone what they want is the loo. 2002 Chicago Daily Herald (Nexis) 28 Dec. (Sports section) 7 He was calling Europe all night on the big white phone. |
▸
white pizza n. U.S. pizza made without tomatoes or tomato products.
| 1973 Washington Post 13 Dec. k10/4 *White pizza. 1993 Washingtonian June 89/1 ‘White pizza’—topped with nothing more than a mince of garlic, a sprinkling of oregano, and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil. 2000J. Leff in J. Kantor Slate Diaries 227 Still haunted by the recent closure of one of my favorite restaurants, I went for a slice of white pizza, and the ricotta reminded me of the tofu at Bo. |
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White Van Man n. (also with lower-case initials)
Brit. colloq. a male driver of a (typically white) delivery or workman's van,
esp. when regarded as an aggressive or bad driver; (hence) a driver of such a van regarded as a social type, usually characterized as an ordinary working man with forthright views.
| 1997 Sunday Times 18 May 3/1 He is known as *White Van Man and is the most feared driver on the road. 1999 Sun 14 Jan. 13 (heading) The world according to White Van Man. 2001 Which Kit? May 24/3 The {pstlg}100ish that it costs to hire and fuel one of these beasties is a good investment with the added bonus that you too can be White Van Man for a day! 2002 Independent (Nexis) 22 Nov. 19 Ask any cab driver, white-van man or parent-with-three-kids-and-shopping, and the answer will be uniformly apocalyptic. |
▪ III. white, v.1 (Also 4–6
whitt-,
whytt-.)
[OE. hw{iacu}tian, f. hw{iacu}t white a. Cf. OHG., MHG. wîȥen, (G. weissen), Goth. hweitjan.] 1. a. intr. To become white:
= whiten v. 2.
Obs.| c 1000 ælfric Saints' Lives xxxiv. 113 Hwæs blod readaþ on rosan ᵹelicnysse, and hwæs lichama hwitað on lilian fæᵹernysse. a 1225 Ancr. R. 150 Þe bouh, hwon he adeadeð, he hwiteð wiðuten. c 1374 Chaucer Troylus v. 276 Ful pale y-woxen was þe moone And whiten gan the Orisonte shene Al Estward. 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xviii. xl. (Bodl. MS.), In wynter..alle þinge whiteþ bi colde and bi froste. 1471 Ripley Comp. Alch. vi. viii. in Ashmole (1652) 163 Drynes procedyth as Whytyth the matter. |
b. Const.
out. Of vision: to become impaired by exposure to a sudden bright light (see also
quot. 1981). Also
trans., to ‘blind’ (an audience in a theatre) by such means.
| 1978 ‘A. Stuart’ Vicious Circles 22 At once my eyes whited out—as disoriented by the brilliant evening sun as a bat caught by a searchlight. 1981 Times Lit. Suppl. 30 Jan. 112/1 As the women lie down to sleep in the hot summer morning, the stage lights white out to mime the atomic fireball. 1983 Listener 3 Feb. 32/3 In Bristol the Little Theatre performs the stage play, using lasers and whiting-out audiences. |
2. † a. trans. To make white:
= whiten v. 1.
Obs.| a 1000 Rhyming Poem ii. 62 (Grein III. i. 162) Flan man hwiteð. c 1325 Pol. Songs (Camden) 336 Be the hond i-whited, it shal go god i-nouh. 1340 Ayenb. 178 Ase þet line cloþ þet is y-huyted be ofte wessinge. 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xix. xxiii. (Bodl. MS.), Colde..blakkeþ dry substaunce & whiteþ moiste substaunce. 1538 Fitzherb. Just. Peas 118 b, Euerie person that vsith the occupacyon of making of tyles, shall make them good and able and throughly whyted. 1561 J. Daus tr. Bullinger on Apoc. 230 They haue washed and whited their garmentes in the bloud of the Lambe. 1568 Hacket tr. Thevet's New found World vii. 10 b, Milke..is but bloud whitted in y⊇ dug. 1599 B. Jonson Cynthia's Rev. iii. v, Your Passion hath sufficiently whited your Face. 1649 Lanc. Tracts Civil War (Chetham Soc.) 234 Who can white a Blackmore? 1721 E. Ward Merry Trav. i. (1729) 16 No yellow Fowl, or stale one, green, Can ever in his Shop be seen, Because he puts in use a strange Device, to white 'em when they change. |
b. spec. To cover or coat with white; to whitewash; also
fig.:
= whiten v. 1 b, d. Now
rare.
| c 1200 Vices & Virtues 15 Mannes þruh, þe is wiðuten ihwited, and wiðinne stinkende. 1377 Langl. P. Pl. B. iii. 61, I shal keure ȝowre kirke..Wowes do whitten. c 1430 Pilgr. Lyf Manhode ii. cxxii. (1869) 121 As the snow embelisheth and whiteth a dong hep with oute. 1534–5 MS. Rawl. D. 777 lf. 72 b, Pargyttyng and whyttyng the Stayers. 1572 Ludlow Churchw. Acc. (Camden) 149 For lyme, to make an end of whittinge the churche. 1599 Nashe Lenten Stuffe 23 A farthing worth of flower to white him ouer and wamble him in. a 1625 Fletcher Bloody Brother iv. i, Thou..Whit'st over all his vices. 1631 Widdowes Nat. Philos. 25 As it were Lead whited with silver. 1777 Brand Pop. Antiq. 270 note, At Oxford, at this Time, the little Crosses cut in the Stones of Buildings, to denote the Division of the Parishes, are whited with Chalk. 1823 Scott Quentin D. xxviii, When he had thus cleared his conscience, or rather whited it over like a sepulchre. 1833 Loudon Encycl. Archit. §235 The ceilings.., as well as the pediment in front of the house, to be lath laid, set, and whited. |
| Proverb. 1596 Dalrymple tr. Leslie's Hist. Scot. II. 373 That at anes, as vses to be said, tha wil quhite tua walis. 1629 H. Burton Babel no Bethel Pref. Ep. 19, I doe in this Booke..as the Proverbe is, white two walls with one brush. |
c. To bleach; to blanch:
= whiten v. 1 c.
| 1530 Palsgr. 457/1, I bleche, I whyte clothe. 1541 Act 33 Hen. VIII c. 15 §1 The said lynnen yarne must lye w{supt}oute..for..one half yere to be whyted. 1611 Bible Mark ix. 3 His raiment became..exceeding white as snow: so as no Fuller on earth can white them. 1658 Evelyn Fr. Gard. (1675) 208 The manner of whiting it [sc. lettuce] under earthen pots. 1714 Fr. Bk. of Rates 128 Wax, bleached or whited in Foreign Parts, and imported. 1972 E. Wigginton Foxfire Bk. 181 And it was the sulfur that whited the apples, and they had a little sulfur flavor. |
d. pa. pple. Of a horse: see
quot. 1737.
| 1737 Bracken Farriery Impr. (1757) II. 5 He is..called well Whited if his Hinder Feet be both White. 1760 Heber Horse Matches ix. 147 He is a compleat strong horse, well whited. 1870 Daily News 6 June, Mr. Robson's His Majesty, in addition to being badly ‘whited’, had unpleasing action. |
e. Printing. To space
out (matter) with ‘white’.
| 1892 A. Oldfield Man. Typogr. i. 15 Reglets for whiting out bills and placards are made of wood. |
f. to white out: to obscure or cover with something white,
esp. a white fluid used by typists. Also
fig.| 1975 J. Butcher Copy-Editing iii. 25 If you want to cancel an underlining for italic, white it out, or put two or three short lines through it, not a wavy line. 1978 M. Duffy Housespy vi. 141 Its long shop window was whited out. 1982 R. Leigh Girl with Bright Head xi. 74 There's also a couple of places where she has had to white out mistakes and type over them. 1983 ‘J. le Carré’ Little Drummer Girl xiii. 224 She drove with her mind whited out and her thoughts deliberately foreshortened. 1984 Times Lit. Suppl. 13 July 771/3 The embarrassed printer explained that he'd whited the little dot out, thinking that it was a dust spot. |
g. To make
up (an actor) to look white.
| 1977 R. Barnard Death on High C's xv. 148 He was already ‘whited up’ for the part of the Duke of Mantua... He must look odd, with his deadly white colouring and negroid lips. |
▪ IV. white, v.2 Sc. and
north. dial. Also 6
Sc. quhite, 7
whyt, 9
dial. whit.
[north. variant of thwite. Cf. whang.] trans. To cut slices off (a stick, etc.) with a knife or other sharp instrument; to pare; to whittle.
| 1567 Gude & Godlie B. (S.T.S.) 72 Stock and stane..Quhilk men may carfe or quhite. 1662 in W. Hunter Biggar & Ho. Fleming (1862) 4 Elf-boyis, wha whyttis and dyghtis thame [sc. arrow-heads] with a sharp thing lyke a paking neidle. 1799 J. Robertson Agric. Perth 267 Boys, who white a stick..until it be so worn down that it become useless. 1890 Service Notandums ix. 62 Ye can be whitin' a stick. |
▪ V. white see
quit,
weight,
wight,
wit,
wite.