wey
/weɪ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.45 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
Alternative form of Wei, an ancient Chinese duchy.
Example Sentences
- "Than though I hadde this wouke ywonne a weye of Essex cheese."
- "Seven pounds make a clove, 2 cloves a stone, 2 stone a tod, 6½ tods a wey, 2 weys a sack, 12 sacks a last. […] It is to be observed here that a sack is 13 tods, and a tod 28 pounds, so that the sack is 364 pounds."
- "Cheese and salt are purchased by the wey of two hundredweight, or by the stone of fourteen pounds."
- "WEY, WEIGH, an English measure of weight; for wool, equal to 6½ tods of 28 lbs.; a load or five quarters of wheat; 40 bushels of salt, each 56 lbs.; 32 cloves of cheese, each 7 lbs.; 48 bushels of oats and barley; 2 to 3 cwt. of butter."
Etymology
From Middle English weie, waie, weihe, wæȝe, from Old English wǣġ (“a weight; a tool for weighing, balance, scale”), from Proto-West Germanic *wāgu, from Proto-Germanic *wēgō (“scales; weight”), from Proto-Indo-European *weǵʰ- (“to move, bring, transport”). Cognate with German Waage (“weight”), Icelandic vág (“a weight”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: weie, wǣġ, *wāgu, *wēgō, *weǵʰ-