whee

alternative wee

1. childishAn expression of pleasure or enjoyment, mostly from rapid physical motion.

   It'll be a secret! Whee!

   2009, Phil and Kaja Foglio, Girl Genius, Volume 9, page 81

   2 more examples

   Up came the revs again, slam the door shut, kick the stick off the throttle and up through the gears, down the others side! Whee! Made it again!

   2000, Bob Foster, Birdum or Bust!, Henley Beach, SA: Seaview Press, page 175

   She twisted the rubber band extra tight. Sure enough, the tractor spun off much faster. Whee! She really liked to see it go fast on the living room floor.

   2001, Ricardo L Garcia, Coal camp days: a boy's remembrance

   Synonyms: whoopee, yay, yeah, yippee

present singular third person whees · participle present wheeing · participle past wheed · past wheed · alternative wee

1. intransitiveTo make a high-pitched sound.

   Bullets ricocheted off the walls and the ceiling, wheeing by him, and his face stung from chips of stone.

   1970, Philip José Farmer, The Mad Goblin

   1 more example

   What a wheeing dost thou keep, / Thou Minion of the Spring, / All the Winter long you sleep, / And all the Summer long you sing.

   1745, Ornithologia Nova; or a New General History of Birds, volume 2, “The nightingale”, page 286

2. informalintransitiveTo cry whee.

   Sometimes, we whee together, at the same time, for the same reason, feeling the same thing. And sometimes – these are the best of times – we can’t really tell who started the whee, or who’s wheeing more.

   2014, Bernard De Koven, A Playful Path, page 172

3. UScolloquialdatedoftentransitivewith upTo excite; to arouse; to energize.

   Los Angeles Rams, wheed up by 102,368, largest crowd ever to watch NFL game, who jampacked Coliseum, controlled San Francisco's Y. A. Tittle, gave own Norm Van Brocklin plenty of passing room to upset Western Division-leading 49ers 37-24[…]

   1957 November 18, “Scoreboard”, in Sports Illustrated

   1 more example

   In Princeton marches of eighty-seven, sixty, seventy-six, fifty-two, fifty-eight, thirty-two and sixty-two yards, in which he had the whole-hearted support of a wheed-up Tiger team, Kazmaier passed for three touchdowns, thirty-three and forty-five yards to wingback Dick Pivirotto, four yards to end Len Lyon.

   1952, Irving Marsh, Edward Ehre, Best Sports Stories, published 1952, page 146