wi-wi2 Austral. and N.Z. slang.
(ˈwiːwiː)
Also wewi, wee-wee, oui-oui.
[ad. F. oui, oui yes, yes, taken as typical of the French language.]
A Frenchman; also as pl. the French.
| 1841 E. J. Wakefield in N.Z. Jrnl. II. xlv. 243/1 Should the Wiwis, or French, kill any of our Chiefs. 1845 E. J. Wakefield Adv. N.Z. I. iv. 94 If I had sold the land to the White missionaries, might they not have sold it again to the Wiwi (Frenchmen) or Americans? 1852 Mundy Antipodes (1857) 180 Young chiefs..who will,..like the ‘Wi-wis’ of Young France, indulge occasionally in what that volatile people style ‘revolutions intestines!’ 1859 A. S. Thomson Story N.Z. I. ii. i. 236 The Wewis, as the French are now called. 1872 Earl Pembroke & G. H. Kingsley S. Sea Bubbles i, Would that the imperious ‘Oui-oui’ had never placed foot upon your sacred shores! |