Wean
[wiːn] or [win]
Definition
(verb.) gradually deprive (infants and young mammals) of mother's milk; 'she weaned her baby when he was 3 months old and started him on powdered milk'; 'The kitten was weaned and fed by its owner with a bottle'.
(verb.) detach the affections of.
Checked by Balder--From WordNet
Definition
(a.) To accustom and reconcile, as a child or other young animal, to a want or deprivation of mother's milk; to take from the breast or udder; to cause to cease to depend on the mother nourishment.
(a.) Hence, to detach or alienate the affections of, from any object of desire; to reconcile to the want or loss of anything.
(n.) A weanling; a young child.
Typist: Patricia
Synonyms and Synonymous
v. a. [1]. Put from the breast.[2]. Withdraw, disengage, alienate, detach.
Checker: Melva
Definition
v.t. to accustom to nourishment other than the mother's milk: to reconcile to the want of anything: to estrange the affections from any object or habit.—n. (wān) an infant a child (Scot.).—ns. Wean′el (Spens.) a weanling; Wean′ing-brash a severe form of diarrhœa which supervenes at times on weaning.—adj. Wean′ling newly weaned.—n. a child or animal newly weaned.
Typed by Levi
Examples
- Often she tried, as gently as might be, to wean him from this fanatic worship of the Muses. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- I tried to wean her fra 't ower and ower agen. Charles Dickens. Hard Times.
- Take the colours and odour from the rose, change the sweet nutriment of mother's milk to gall and poison; as easily might you wean Perdita from love. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- I am _not_ weaned from you, and no human being and no mortal influence _can_ wean me. Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- O, remain with us--the counsel of holy men will wean you from your erring law, and I will be a sister to you. Walter Scott. Ivanhoe.
- Oh, when shall we wean ourselves from the worship of Mammon! Wilkie Collins. The Moonstone.
- For years I had gradually weaned him from that drug mania which had threatened once to check his remarkable career. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
- We have seen in an earlier chapter that geometry developed as a sci ence is becoming gradually weaned from the art of surveying. Walter Libby. An Introduction to the History of Science.
- He interested Fulton in his schemes and gradually weaned his thoughts away from art to civil engineering. Rupert S. Holland. Historic Inventions.
- I am _not_ weaned from you, and no human being and no mortal influence _can_ wean me. Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- Gradually it drew away all his potentiality, it bled him into the dark, it weaned him of life and drew him away into the darkness. D. H. Lawrence. Women in Love .
Editor: Verna