Wean
Verb
Pronunciation and accent: wi;n
Etymology: Middle English wenen (= to accustom)
Preterite tense: weaned
Preterite participle: weaned
present participle: weaning.
Transitively:
First definition: to cause (a child or other young animal) to cease to depend on its mother’s milk; to cause to cease to be suckled.
It may be approximately translated by destetar, in Spanish; svezzare, in Italian; sevrer, in French.
[…] perhaps, you had some occasion for the sucking-bottle, for, by your actions, one would imagine yon were hardly weaned.
Charles Whitehead (Lives and exploits…)
But if we were to narrate all the wonderful events of Jack's childhood from the time of his birth up to the age of seven years, as chronicled by Sarah, who continued his dry nurse after he had been weaned, it would take at least three volumes folio.
Frederick Marryat (Mr. Midshipman Easy)
After Robinson had accustomed the young lamas to eat grass from his hand, he gradually weaned them, and milked the dam morning and evening.
Mary Howitt (A treasury of old favourite tales)
After being weaned, the foals are called simply colt or filly, according to the sex.
Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine, Volumen 65
If the colt is healthy and thriving, he should be weaned at from five to six months old.
Oscar Gleason (Gleason’s horse book)
***With the preposition upon, followed by a noun, designative of the food substitute:
With warm stables and comfortable sheds, the autumn colt can suck the well-fed mare in the winter, and be weaned upon fresh grass in the spring, and never know a check in his growth.
Oscar Gleason (Gleason’s horse book)
It is not true that calves are best weaned upon grass.
Samuel Deane (The New-England Farmer)
***Absolutely:
The length of time during which an infant ought to be fed at the breast is subject to some variation. In this country, the end of the ninth month is usually considered a proper time for weaning; but much depends on the condition of the mother, and also on that of the child.
Andrew Combe (The physiology of digestion)
Second definition: to cause (a person, his affection, etc.) to be disconnected from something incorporeal
***With the preposition from, followed either by a noun or by a gerund:
He is […] constrained by his father to choose a wife, whose gentleness and modest behaviour soon wean his affections from his mistress.
John Dunlop (History of Roman Literature)
What she saw of Lord de Montmorenci, delighted her. She hoped that in his society her husband would find that interest and charm, which would wean him from less eligible companions.
Charlotte Bury (Love)
It is a great pleasure and amusement to me to watch their proceedings. At first, [… the birds] were shy and distrustful of their fellow-lodger, but I have gradually weaned them from their fears, and they now come and pick up crumbs which I throw to them at meals.
William Cumming (Notes of a wanderer)
***Reflexively:
At this period I had resolved gradually to wean myself from opium.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine
I hoped he would visit me sometimes, that I might, by degrees, wean myself from his company.
George Smollett (The adventures of Peregrine Pickle)
[…] I found that he had offered a florin for a little bread and cheese, and then a dollar, and even more. Being again refused, he complained heavily; but gradually he weaned himself from asking for it.
Thomas De Quincey (Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers)
***Intransitively:
My mind had been gradually weaning from Mr. Falkland, till its feeling rose to something like abhorrence.
William Godwin (The Adventures of Caleb Williams)
