Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definitions: WHEW |
WHEWIntransitive verb1. To whistle with a shrill pipe, like a plover. Noun & interjection1. A sound like a half-formed whistle, expressing astonishment, scorn, or dislike. |
Date "WHEW" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1598. (references) |
Crosswords: WHEW |
| English words defined with "WHEW": Whew duck. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "WHEW": Whewer. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Angelyne! Whew! Boy, you look different. (Three Men and a Baby; writing credit: Jim Cruickshank; James Orr) Whew, this movie business is tough. (Get Shorty; writing credit: Scott Frank. Based on the novel by Elmore Leonard.) Whew! Glad I got that off my chest! (Finding Nemo; writing credit: Andrew Stanton) On behalf of all the intelligent women in America, may I just say: whew! (Cheers; writing credit: Isaac Cronin; Wayne Wang) Whew. A couple of one-way tickets to Tahiti would scarcely put a dent in it! (I Spy; writing credit: James B. Allardice) | |
Lyrics | WHEW ABOUT TO SLIP DOWN (Working In A Coal Mine; performing artist: Devo) Yeah! Whew! (Me & Bobby McGee; performing artist: Janis Joplin) Yeah, you should be mine, mine, whew (EMOTIONAL RESCUE; performing artist: Rolling Stones) | |
Clever | Sleeping on the job: Whew! I must have left the top off the whiteout. (references; author: unknown) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Whew! (1979) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Play | Caption |
 | Whiz; whew; zing. |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "WHEW" is generally used as a noun (proper) -- approximately 80.00% of the time. "WHEW" is used about 5 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (proper) | 80% | 4 | 175,879 |
| Noun (singular) | 20% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 5 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "WHEW": whew duck. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "WHEW": Whew-yow-ee. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
whew | 16 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "WHEW"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | uf (ouch, phew). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | ouf, fichtre. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | hu (hugu, ugh). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | μπά. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | tyûha, ejha (boohoo, heyday, wow). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | ewwhay вот так так. (various references) fijuk (whistling, whiz, whizz, zip). (various references) uf (phew, shame). (various references) usch (och, ugh, yah, yuk). (various references) vay canına (blimey, brother, by george), vay be (brother, cor, gee, gee whiz, hello, hullo, my, my hat, phew, wow), vay (ha, phew, wow), of (ah, humph, ouch, phew, pish, pooh, pshaw, ugh), üf (puff), öf (ah, humph, ouch, phew, pish, pooh, pshaw, ugh). (various references) свист (catcall, hissing, phut, ping, swish, whiff, whistle, whistling, whiz, whizz, whoosh, zing, zip), свиснути. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "WHEW": whews. (additional references) | |
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"WHEW" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: ahew, Dhew, weew, wew, whe, whea, Whec, whed, wheeg, whei. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "WHEW" (pronounced wuw", hwuw" , or hyuw") |
| 2 | w uw" | woo. |
| 2 | -w uw" | woo. |
| 3 | h y uw" | Hew, hue. |
| 2 | -y uw" | askew, cue, debut, ewe, few, fondue, imbue, mew, miscue, pew, phew, Pugh, queue, review, revue, skew, spew, view, yew, you. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-h-w-w" | |
-1 letter: hew. | |
-2 letters: eh, he, we. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-h-w-w" | |
+1 letter: whews. | |
+4 letters: hawkweed, newshawk, withdrew. | |
+5 letters: hawkweeds, newshawks, washwomen, wheelwork, wherewith, whipsawed, whitewall, whitewash, whitewing, whitewood, witchweed. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)57 48 45 57 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references).--. .... . .--. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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| Amazon.com BOOKS: Search for: "WHEW" |
