What's the difference between waif and wain?

Waif


Definition:

  • (n.) Goods found of which the owner is not known; originally, such goods as a pursued thief threw away to prevent being apprehended, which belonged to the king unless the owner made pursuit of the felon, took him, and brought him to justice.
  • (n.) Hence, anything found, or without an owner; that which comes along, as it were, by chance.
  • (n.) A wanderer; a castaway; a stray; a homeless child.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Fringe right parties do tend to collect a number of waifs and strays.
  • (2) The fiercest denunciation came from the minister without portfolio, Kenneth Clarke, who characterised Ukip candidates as waifs and strays, feeding on prejudice about immigration.
  • (3) After a hard day at the Vatican, the pontiff likes little better than watching films in which a resolute priest battles the Nazis and a circus strongman takes a waif as his slave.
  • (4) "The fringe right parties do tend to collect a number of waifs and strays.
  • (5) The brochure was promoting a scheme where you take waif kids and kids of the pauper class and the slums before they could be corrupted by the poverty and crime of England and send them to Australia for education and opportunity in schools like Fairbridge, where we would become strong and long-limbed by working the farms,” Hill says.
  • (6) Waif-like figures, mostly young men from Morocco and Algeria, rushed to grab the polystyrene cups.
  • (7) It was symptomatic of the first half that Stoke’s wonder waif, Bojan Krkic, harassed Cazorla into coughing up possession on halfway in the 25th minute before out-fighting Per Mertesacker to set up a Stoke attack that culminated in a dangerous corner.
  • (8) Chapter 39 also forgot about women altogether when it spoke of outlawry, for women were not outlawed they were “waived”, which meant left as a “waif”.
  • (9) Five minutes in and you realise that this is not a permanent home – simply the Swedish base camp of a huge nomadic family with its roots in the 1960s, whose friends and collaborators connect some of the most unlikely names, from Ornette Coleman to Ari Up from the Slits, from Martina Topley-Bird to waifs and strays such as "that strange young man that Cameron met in the street and let live in our house for a while".
  • (10) Last week even a waif washing car windscreens at traffic lights was executed.
  • (11) Dramas set in these times tend either to be full of the sort of tubercular waifs whose lives are so mud-spattered they become slapstick, or cheeky orphan chimney sweeps saying things like “Cor it’ll be nippy by St Modwen’s Day and no mistake, guvnor!” next to a lovely shire horse.
  • (12) The lines were written only a few days before his death: Through these pale cold days What dark faces burn Out of three thousand years, And their wild eyes yearn, While underneath their brows Like waifs their spirits grope For the pools of Hebron again For Lebanon's summer slope.
  • (13) Ukip has "fruitcakes, loonies, waifs and strays" in its ranks and among its supporters, Kenneth Clarke has said after a spate of stories questioning the credentials of the party's candidates in this week's local elections.
  • (14) But it is now also a parliamentary waif without a home or useful purpose.
  • (15) Waifs were everywhere; the odder-looking the better.
  • (16) This caustic ensemble comedy is about a neurotic actress (Julianne Moore) haunted by her dead mother, a repellent Bieber-esque teen star (terrific up-and-comer Evan Bird) and a deranged waif (Mia Wasikowska) with a dark past.
  • (17) When I mention that I live near Tony Benn , and often see him taking an hour to buy a pint of milk because he patiently engages with every passing waif and stray who wants his advice on something or other, Farage's eyes light up.
  • (18) The teenage waif became a symbol of sanctions-busting, of the weasel ways in which western governments eroded the campaign to isolate Pretoria.
  • (19) Since the supermodels of the 90s – the likes of Elle Macpherson and Claudia Schiffer – retired their bronzed Amazonian limbs, the favoured look has been vacant and waif-like: an ethereal type, easily made bland and identikit for the catwalk after hair and makeup.
  • (20) Ukip said that Lynam, the face of television sport during the 1980s, sent the party rewritten lyrics to Send in the Clowns , mocking Conservative critics who lambasted Ukip as a bunch of fruitcakes, loonies, waifs and strays .

Wain


Definition:

  • (n.) A four-wheeled vehicle for the transportation of goods, produce, etc.; a wagon.
  • (n.) A chariot.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) By using these data and the known structure of the combining site of protein MOPC 315 [Dwek, Wain-Hobson, Dower, Gettins, Sutton, Perkins & Givol (1977), Nature (London) 266, 31-37] the mode of binding of Tnp derivatives is deduced by ring-current calculations.
  • (2) At Christmas I went to department stores in Buchanan Street and bought inexpensive ornaments and prints, again not understanding – or not understanding well enough – that seeing more of me was worth any number of smoked glass decanters or pictures by the Impressionists (an unusually dreary example of which replaced FD Millet's Between Two Fires in the frame above the fireplace, until my parents, suffering it in silence for long enough, papered it over with Constable's The Hay Wain).
  • (3) As well as The Hay Wain in the National Gallery there is The Valley Farm in the Tate collection .
  • (4) The samples studied were derived from the same man for whom a detailed analysis of the tat gene was previously described (A. Meyerhans, R. Cheynier, J. Albert, M. Seth, S. Kwok, J. Sninsky, L. Morfeldt-Manson, B. Asjö, and S. Wain-Hobson, Cell 58:901-910, 1989).
  • (5) A method of modifying a Cape-Waine Anaesthetic Ventilator is described in detail showing what parts need to be replaced or removed.
  • (6) She might have stitched the whole thing in front of her hissing gas fire, with her brass ornaments twinkling in the background, Corrie playing on the telly and The Hay Wain over the fireplace.” Perry flirts with John Major territory – “cricket on the village green” makes an appearance among Perry’s aggregation of words and phrases that seem to him to express Britishness – but it is too sly to fall for the whole warm beer and cycling spinsters schtick.
  • (7) Adenomyosis wained in the aged hybrids, apparently due to declining ovarian function.
  • (8) Hillsborough disaster: six people, including David Duckenfield, charged Read more Norman Bettison – inspector Bettison’s role included writing most of the force’s account of the disaster in the Wain report to Lord Justice Taylor.
  • (9) "Shropshire council has acknowledged that the 2,600 figure is both arbitrary and inexact," said John Waine from Hoooh.
  • (10) In protein XRPC 25 a positively charged residue was located at the entrance to the site, similarly positioned to that reported for protein MOPC 315 [Sutton, Gettins, Givol, Marsh, Wain-Hobson, Willan & Dwek (1977) Biochem.J.165, 177-197].
  • (11) The contacts expected between epsilon-2,4-dinitrophenyl-L-lysine and the site on MOPC 315 IgA, on the basis of a recent model for this site [Dwek, Wain-Hobson, Dower, Gettins, Sutton, Perkins & Givol (1977) Nature (London) 266, 31--37] were not detected.
  • (12) By using a series of Dnp-spin-labelled haptens, the dimensions of the binding sites of the three myeloma proteins were compared by the method described for protein MOPC 315 [Sutton, Gettins, Givol, Marsh, Wain-Hobson, Willan & Dwek (1977) Biochem.
  • (13) On one of many evenings at Orton's home, Waine also recalls Williams's fury when the playwright revealed that he had spiked Williams's food with hashish.
  • (14) Simon Wain-Hobson , a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, said that scientists working on the controversial virus studies should be less defensive.
  • (15) Known as the Babes in the Woods, Waine and Dennis became friends with Williams after Waine, an Oxford undergraduate, sent him an amusing fan letter.
  • (16) While Williams was clearly attracted to Waine, the friendship remained platonic.
  • (17) Willy Lott’s House from the Stour (The Valley Farm) is the same cottage seen from a different angle in Constable’s most famous painting, the slightly later The Hay Wain .
  • (18) Waine and Dennis helped Stevens to unravel the background to many unexplored sections of the diaries, which Williams started keeping in 1942 and famously finished with a final dark entry on 14 April 1988, the night of his death, with the words "Oh – what's the bloody point?"
  • (19) "Tom Waine and Clive Dennis feature frequently in the published extracts, but they're never fully identified," Stevens said.
  • (20) Some experts argue that fat is the wrong target and that salt, sugar and refined carbohydrates should be tackled instead, but Dr Colin Waine, former chairman of the National Obesity Forum, welcomed the move.

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