whist

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: wĭst, IPA^(key): /wɪst/ or enPR: hwĭst, IPA^(key): /ʍɪst/ (in Scottish English and some English accents)

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪst
• Homophone: wist (in accents with the wine-whine merger)

Etymology 1

Alteration of whisk, perhaps so called from the notion of “whisking” up cards after each trick. Altered perhaps on assumption that the word was an interjection invoking silence, by influence of whist (“silent”).

Noun

whist (countable and uncountable, plural whists)

1. Any of several four-player card games, similar to bridge.
2. A session of playing this card game.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• whist on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Whist in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Etymology 2

From Middle English whist (“silent”), possibly onomatopoeic.

Interjection

whist

1. Alternative spelling of whisht. Silence!, quiet!, hush!, shhh!, shush!
   • 1860, anonymous author, Heroes and Hunters of the West‎, HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2008:

     … for scarcely had they descended one hundred feet, when a low “whist” from the girl, warned them of present danger.

Verb

whist (third-person singular simple present whists, present participle whisting, simple past and past participle whisted)

1. (transitive, rare) To hush or shush; to still.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     o was the Titaness put downe and whist

2. (intransitive, rare) To become silent.
   • 1557 July 1, Virgil, “The Fowrth Boke of Virgiles Aenæis”, in Henry [Howard, Earl] of Surrey, transl., edited by William Bolland, Certain Bokes of Virgiles Aenaeis, Turned into English Meter ([Roxburghe Club Publications; I]), London: A J Valpy, , published 1814, →OCLC:

     The fields whist, beasts, and fowls of divers bue

Adjective

whist (comparative more whist, superlative most whist)

1. (rare) Silent, hushed.
   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     Come unto these yellow sands, / And then take hands: / Courtsied when you have and kiss'd / The wild waves whist, / Foot it featly here and there; / And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear. […]

References

Anagrams

• Whits, swith, whits, wisht, withs

Czech

Czech Wikipedia has an article on:

whist

Wikipedia ^cs

Etymology

Borrowed from English whist.

Noun

whist m inan

1. whist

Declension

Danish

Etymology

From English whist.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /vest/,
• Homophones: vidst, vist

Noun

whist c (singular definite whisten, not used in plural form)

1. whist (a card game)

Declension

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English whist.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wist/

Noun

whist m (uncountable)

1. whist

Further reading

• “whist”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

Italian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English whist.

Noun

whist m (invariable)

1. whist (card game)