What's the difference between whine and whir?

Whine


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To utter a plaintive cry, as some animals; to moan with a childish noise; to complain, or to tell of sorrow, distress, or the like, in a plaintive, nasal tone; hence, to complain or to beg in a mean, unmanly way; to moan basely.
  • (v. t.) To utter or express plaintively, or in a mean, unmanly way; as, to whine out an excuse.
  • (n.) A plaintive tone; the nasal, childish tone of mean complaint; mean or affected complaint.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It’s great that the new Star Wars film is more diverse , with John Boyega and Daisy Ridley in significant roles; I am pleased to see everyone on #BoycottStarWarsVII gnash and whine uselessly.
  • (2) You can whine about the politics of this until you are green, white and orange in the face but if you want to learn Irish – and many people do – your best bet is to organise your own classes.
  • (3) Green Day love it The American rock band Green Day are proud champions of Salinger's antihero; their 1994 song Basket Case is a nasally homage in nasally whines.
  • (4) I whine that I haven’t been able to successfully place an order, let alone indicate how i’d like my steak done.
  • (5) So that rightwing free market ideologues can open up all those markets that the US have been whining to the World Trade Organisation about for decades; for some ideological principal that says people should pay less tax and privately fund only the services they need and want, and screw the collective community if they cannot afford to pay their insurance; that puts money in the pockets of the very richest in society, while the very poorest will be expected to step up or die out; that any public provision will not be on the basis of the most needy, but on the basis of who those in control consider to be the most deserving.
  • (6) On 16 November I find another writerly whine: "I feel sucked hollow."
  • (7) "Can you explain to the Whining Yanks that they didn't have a goal disallowed in the match against Slovenia, since the referee clearly blew for what he perceived to be a foul before the ball had reached Edu and ended up in the back of the net," lectures Matt.
  • (8) Whining about cab drivers transcends national boundaries.
  • (9) When you carry on moping, and whining like Charlie Brown after listening to the whole Smiths catalog at every single club you've played, it's hard to believe Tristelme was ever destined for true greatness.
  • (10) He would be watching the dogfights, planes diving and looping, their engines whining, each hurling fire at the other.
  • (11) Effects of diazepam were examined on the whine reaction elicited by LH stimulation and on unit activities in the LH and Abm in cats.
  • (12) The whole show is really just a riff on that well-meaning girl in 1980s Grange Hill whining, "Why do you eat so many sandwiches, Ro-land?"
  • (13) We know we'll get into trouble for it and we're certainly not whining about that."
  • (14) And in the absence of a firm rebuttal, all you can do, as Kerry did and Romney is now doing, is whine.
  • (15) This Fourth of July weekend, we Americans did what we're known for: we grilled meats, whined about air travel, and looked back in fondness at our Founding Fathers who refused to pay their taxes.
  • (16) Their president-elect whining about someone being mean about his restaurant, or gloating over The Apprentice’s ratings dip under Arnold Schwarzenegger.
  • (17) As for its leadership, the current choice of new brooms includes a prince from a non-democracy, a South Korean billionaire and Fifa insider who nodded Blatterism through for the best part of two decades before deciding opportunely to speak out (and is now whining about being taken out by the “hitman” that is Blatter’s ethics committee), and Michel Platini , whose reputation appears to have a half-life shorter than most highly radioactive isotopes.
  • (18) As the new Zimbabwe effectively became a one-party state under the gifted but autocratic Mugabe, as terrible droughts undermined the economy and confidence of what was so recently one of the richest and most fertile African countries and as Aids cut a swathe through the population, the old pariah, defiant and bigoted to the last, could not resist saying, with the familiar Smithy whine: "I told you so."
  • (19) She was wolf-reared in Judd Apatow's tumescent-adolescent boy-zone (none of whose denizens is ever cast for his hair colour), but she can take any of those boys to the woodshed for a rhetorical spanking, rich in obscenity and scatology, in that razor-sharp whine.
  • (20) Offensive behaviour, i.e., whine response to a rod presented in front of the snout and blowing air on back hair was markedly observed, and whine, attacking and biting responses to tapping with a rod on the back in these cats were marked.

Whir


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To whirl round, or revolve, with a whizzing noise; to fly or more quickly with a buzzing or whizzing sound; to whiz.
  • (v. t.) To hurry a long with a whizzing sound.
  • (n.) A buzzing or whizzing sound produced by rapid or whirling motion; as, the whir of a partridge; the whir of a spinning wheel.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Here's a picture of Mike Ashley's whirly-bird instead.
  • (2) In a whir of lycra and straining calf muscles, the sleek, bent bodies flashed past, urged on by the crowds.
  • (3) At night, if you are quiet, you can hear them whirring from the Hills Hoist.
  • (4) We strolled across springy heather and moss as wet as a sponge, and a strange cackling call of “go-back, go-back” rose on the wind: small coveys of red grouse whirred away from us.
  • (5) I’m sure the person had a valid reason but it should be clear that the Ka’bah should not suddenly be surrounding by whirring Segways.” A hoverboard is a levitating board that was popularised by Marty McFly in the Back to the Future films.
  • (6) I see this as the most damaging event for our brand in the company’s 140-year history,” Tanaka said after making a ritual deep bow of contrition while cameras whirred and flashed.
  • (7) Perhaps, rather than the mystique, it’s the sense of knowledge that keeps them hanging on – that perpetual feeling of opening the city up like a pocket watch and seeing its cogs and springs all whirring away inside.
  • (8) This happened on Monday when X-Files star Gillian Anderson retweeted a poster made by a fan, imagining her as the new 007 : the actor photoshopped in front of that big iconic whirly gun barrel and the official logo pasted at the bottom.
  • (9) ‘owl-light’ (Lancashire) fizmer the whispering sound of wind in reeds or grass (Fenland) grimlins the night hours around midsummer when dusk blends into dawn (Orkney) The word-hoard: Robert Macfarlane on rewilding our language of landscape Read more gruffy ground the surface landscape left behind by lead-mining (Somerset) grumma a mirage caused by mist or haze (Shetland) hob-gob a dangerously choppy sea (Suffolk) muxy of land; sticky, miry, muddy (Exmoor) outshifts the fringes and boundaries of a town (Cambridgeshire) roarie-bummlers fast-moving storm clouds (Scots) snow-bones long thin patches of snow still lying after a thaw, often in dips or stream-cuts (Yorkshire) turn-whol a deep and seething pool where two quick streams meet (Cumbria) zwer the whirring sound made by a covey of partridge taking flight (Exmoor)
  • (10) The two other videos uploaded to the account are titled “natural hallucinogen 2x (faster and better trip)” and “natural hallucinogen slow motion (stronger and longer trip),” and depict whirring graphics.
  • (11) But these exchanges are not places either: they are server farms, air-conditioned warehouses filled with rack-mounted computers, complete with blinking lights and whirring discs.
  • (12) For the most part the only sound we hear is the whirring of our wheels and birdsong.
  • (13) That craft whirred into view at 9.50am – cutting it fine for a 10 o'clock meeting, but you know what?
  • (14) "These guys have to be super-smart and super-dedicated," says one manager against the blinking lights and whirring fans.
  • (15) While assembling Room 237, the director found himself watching The Shining again and again, his brain whirring, his senses in uproar.
  • (16) He cut up a 10-volume illustrated Larousse encyclopaedia he'd bought in Bath, apparently using 32 pairs of scissors, and his collage technique helps depict such Thomas phrases as "slow clocks" (cue for several whirring time-pieces) or "the boys are dreaming wicked" (two pin-ups and touches of a Wild West rodeo).
  • (17) But the questions raised by the women's movements whirred around her mind.
  • (18) But against the odds, the cassette has whirred into fabulous life again, and on 7 September, an international event will celebrate its resurgence.
  • (19) He may succeed in crippling al-Qaida and preventing some attacks today, but it is now harder than ever to believe that a young child in Pakistan hearing the whirring noises of drones above them will look up and see Obama's America as "the relentless opponent of terror and tyranny, and the light of hope to the world" .
  • (20) The wingless whirly-bird which brought Danny Graham and his agent to Sunderland is unable to take off because of windy weather conditions.

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