whinny

plural whinnies · alternative whinney

1. A gentle neigh.

   When my wife and I heard a plaintive whinny from our laundry room the other day, we knew that our old dryer had cycled its last load.

   2026 January 16, Danny Heitman, “An empty nester’s ode to the cycles of laundry – and life”, in The Christian Science Monitor

   1 more example

   And moving out they found the stately horse, / Who now no more a vassal to the thief, / But free to stretch his limbs in lawful fight, / Neigh'd with all gladness as they came, and stoop'd / With a low whinny toward the pair: […]

   1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Enid”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC, pages 85–86

present singular third person whinnies · participle present whinnying · participle past whinnied · past whinnied · alternative whinney

1. intransitivetransitiveTo make a gentle neigh.

   A pony whinnied a short distance from the hut.

   1914 October – 1916 July, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter XIII, in The Mucker, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., published 31 October 1921, →OCLC

   2 more examples

   Cattle lowed here and there, and horses whinnied to be fed.

   1904 May, Winston Churchill, The Crossing, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, book I (The Borderland), page 240

   [John Gray] whinnies like a donnish Houyhnhnm[.]

   2014 January 28, Will Self, “John Gray: Forget everything you know”, in Independent, retrieved 03 Mar 2021