Wee sb. and a.

Originally Sc. Forms: 4 wei, wey(e, 4–6 we, 6–9 wie, 7 wea, 8 wi, 6– wee. [Northern ME. wei, repr. earlier Anglian wéʓ, wéʓe = WS. wǽʓ, wǽʓe (see WEIGH sb.); the later we, wee shows the normal loss of the final palatal spirant which is still indicated in all the rhymes of the earliest texts.

  In the sb. the original sense of ‘quantity,’ ‘amount,’ is very slightly recorded, the word being mainly used (almost always with little) as a measure of time or space. In adjectival use, however, the idea of quantity or size has been retained; this use evidently originated in the Sc. idiom exemplified by BIT sb.² 9 (a bit thing = ‘a bit of a thing,’ ‘a little thing’); cf. wee bit in B c below. It is however remarkable that, although found as early as the 15th c., the adj. is rare in Sc. writers before 1721, though our quots. from Shakespeare and Heywood show that it had become known to Englishmen early in the 17th c. The word (both sb. and adj.) is current in the dialects of some English counties (see Eng. Dial. Dict.), but there is no evidence to show that it was commonly used in England before the 19th c.; see however WAYBIT.]

  A.  sb. In early use almost always a little wee, later also a wee: = ‘a little,’ ‘a (little) bit’; in various applications (chiefly as adverbial accusative).

  † 1.  a. A little or young thing; a child. Obs.

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 8419. He ne es yitt bot a littel wei, Þow do him for to foster slei.

  b.  A small quantity.

c. 1375.  Sc. Leg. Saints, xix. (Christopher), 605. Þe kinge tuk þan a lytil we of þe fresche blude, & vet his ee.

  c.  To a small extent; in a small degree.

1513.  Douglas, Æneis, I. ix. 61. The quene Dido, astonist a litle wie [1710, we] At the first sycht.

1720.  Ramsay, Rise & Fall of Stocks, 85. It lulls a wee my Mullygrubs, To think upon these bitten Scrubs.

1793.  Regal Rambler or Devil in London, 69. Dinna be angry, lad, said the young late republican, I have been drinking a wi, and I believe the Devil was in me.

  d.  Qualifying an adj. or adv.: Somewhat, rather.

1816.  Scott, Old Mort., xxxvii. His brain was a wee ajee, but he was a braw preacher for a’ that. Ibid. (1818), Br. Lamm., xxv. I thought it right to look a wee strange upon it at first. Ibid. (1818), Hrt. Midl., li. ‘Are you sure you know the way?’… ‘I maybe kend it a wee better fifteen years syne.’

  2.  A short time.

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 11665. Quen sco had sitten þar a wei [Gött. wey] Sco bihild a tre was hei. Ibid., 12531. [James, stung by an adder] Bolnand in a litel wei, þat al-mast bigan he to dei.

c. 1375.  Sc. Leg. Saints, xvi. (Magdalene), 449. Quhene he … wist þat in a lytil we for falt of met þe barne suld de.

1375.  Barbour, Bruce, VII. 182. The Kyng than vynkit a litill we.

c. 1500.  Priests of Peblis, 817. Ane lytill wie befoir the feist of Ȝule.

1535.  Stewart, Cron. Scot. (Rolls), I. 183. Now will I leif of this ane lytill we. Ibid., II. 139. So at the last the cloude ane lytill we Discouerit wes, that tha micht better se.

c. 1560.  Rolland, Seven Sages, 154. Scho was wyteles a lytill we.

1592.  Montgomerie, Misc. Poems, lvi. 2. Stay, passinger, thy mynd, thy futt, thy ee: Vouchsaif, a we, his epitaph to vieu, Quha [etc.].

a. 1700.  Gaberlunzie-Man, iv.

a. 1728.  Ramsay, Ode Birih of Drumlanrig, 47. Ye hardy Heroes … Forsake a wee th’ Elysian Plains.

1818.  Scott, Rob Roy, xiv. Bide a wee—bide a wee; you southrons are aye in sic a hurry.

1869.  A. Macdonald, Love, Law & Theol., vii. 120. In a wee they baith felt their wames leavin’ them, an’ they maist lost their senses.

  3.  A short distance; a little way.

1375.  Barbour, Bruce, XIII. 217. Arrowes that felly Mony gret voundis can thame ma, And slew fast of thair hors alsua, That thai vayndist a litell we. Ibid., XVII. 677. Behynd hir a litill we It fell.

c. 1420.  Wyntoun, Cron., VIII. xxxiii. 5788. We sal fenȝhe ws as we walde fle, And wiþe draw ws a litil we.

  B.  adj. Extremely small, tiny. (In Sc. use with weaker sense, as a synonym of little.) Often more emphatically wee wee, little wee, wee little.

  The Shaks. example is not found in the quarto of 1602; as this has ‘a whay-coloured beard’ in the corresponding sentence, it has been conjectured that the ‘wee-face’ of the Folio may be a mistake for whey-face (cf. Macb., V. iii. 17). However, the reading of the Folio may be taken as evidence that the adj. was known in 1623. In this and in quot. 1617 the adj. is hyphened to the following sb., and preceded by little.

c. 1450.  Holland, Houlate, 649. The litill we Wran, That wretchit dorche was.

? 1598.  Shaks., Merry W. (1623), I. iv. 32. He hath but a little wee-face, with a little yellow beard.

1617.  Heywood, Fair Maid of West, II. i. Hee was nothing so tall as I, but a little wee-man, and somewhat huckt backt.

1638.  in W. N. Clarke, Coll. Lett. (1848), 173. Her ministers gangand in guid auld little short cloakes, with wea blacke velvet neckes. Ibid., 180. Upon his weake wea nagg.

1692.  [? Calder], Sc. Presbyt. Eloq., 104. The very wie-ones [marg. Little Children] were then so serious that [etc.].

1721.  Kelly, Sc. Prov., A 178. A wie [Foot-note: little] Mouse will creep under a mickle Corn-stack. Ibid., B 35. Better a wie Fire to warm us, than a mickle Fire to burn us.

1721.  Ramsay, Poems, Gloss. 397. Wee, Little; as, A wanton wee Thing.

1726.  Fleming’s Fulfilling Script. (ed. 5), Table Scots Phr., Wie, little or small.

1786.  Burns, Inventory, 37. Wee Davock hauds the nowt in fother. Ibid. (1792), Song. She is a winsome wee thing.

1818.  Scott, Hrt. Midl., v. It wad aye serve to keep the puir thing’s heart up for a wee while.

1819.  J. R. Drake, Culprit Fay, xv. He banned the water-goblins’ spite,—For he saw … Their little wee faces above the brine.

1827.  G. Darley, Sylvia, 31. Neater, I ween, though not much ampler, Than wee miss works upon her sampler.

1832.  Motherwell, Poems, Oh Wae be, 6. The wee wee fifes piped loud and shrill.

1846.  H. Coleridge, Poems, II. 23. Like a wee bird struggling in the nest.

a. 1856.  in Strang, Glasgow & Clubs, 574. You have only to raise the window, haud up your wee finger, and, [etc.].

1884.  Q. Victoria, More Leaves, 204. We met little Alix on her wee pony.

1889.  ‘J. S. Winter,’ Mrs. Bob, iii. She would be free … to hie herself to London-town and take a dear wee little flat.

  b.  in superlative.

1728.  Ramsay, Reasons Hackney Scribblers, 22. To wiest Insects even’d and painted.

a. 1856.  in Strang, Glasgow & Clubs, 572. They’re a’ awa, fra the wee’st to the biggest o’ them.

1863.  ‘Holme Lee,’ A. Warleigh, II. 271. Strangers … who wore such amplitude of petticoat that in passing between the ranks of infants … they literally swept the wee-est over.

1878.  A. J. C. Hare, Story of Life (1896), I. 206. Tell me all about the wedding—every smallest, weeest thing.

1883.  Black, Shandon Bells, v. The boat the wee-est black speck on the silver of the water.

  c.  A wee bit: = ‘a wee’ (see A. sb.). Often quasi-adj. (cf. BIT sb.²) and quasi-adv. (qualifying an adj.).

a. 1661.  [see WAY-BIT].

1721.  Kelly, Sc. Prov., A 183. A wie House well fill’d, a wie bit Land well till’d, and a wie Wife well will’d will make a happy Man.

1785.  Burns, Cottar’s Sat. Night, 23. His wee-bit ingle, blinkan bonilie.

1823.  Moor, Suffolk Words, 474. ‘A wee bit of a thing’—applied to a child, and to almost every little thing.

1828.  Scott, F. M. Perth, xxvii. A boat will wait for you … at a wee bit creek about half a mile westward from the head of the Tay.

1901.  W. R. H. Trowbridge, Lett. her Mother to Eliz., xxviii. 140. The champagne … that I had this morning has given me just a wee bit of a migraine.

  d.  The wee folk: the fairies.

1819.  W. S. Mason, Stat. Acc. Irel., III. 27. The curate has heard a man swear most solemnly, that he has seen some hundreds of the ‘wee folk’ dancing round these trees.

1854.  Allingham, Fairies, 5. Wee folk, guid folk, Trooping all together; Green jacket, red cap, And grey-cock’s feather.

1894.  K. Grahame, Pagan Papers, 162. The quotation suggested a fairy story,… But the Wee Folk were under a cloud: sceptical hints had embittered the chalice.

  e.  The Wee Free Kirk: a nickname given to the minority of the Free Church of Scotland which stood apart when the main body amalgamated with the United Presbyterian Church to form the United Free Church in 1900. Hence Wee Frees, Wee Kirkers, the members of the ‘Wee Free’ church.

1904.  A. N. Cumming, in Monthly Rev., Oct., 5 (heading). The Free Kirk and the ‘Wee’ Kirk.

1904.  Times, 31 Dec., 8/1. The funds must be handed over to the remnant of the old Free Church—the ‘Wee Frees,’ as Scotland nicknames them.

1905.  P. W. Wilson, Why we believe, v. 61. Scotland is convulsed because the property of the United Free Church has been handed over by a court of law to a remnant of Wee Kirkers.