whee

• IPA^(key): /wiː/
• (without the wine–whine merger) IPA^(key): /ʍiː/

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iː
• Homophones: oui, we, wee, Wii (in accents with the wine-whine merger)

whee

1. (childish) An expression of pleasure or enjoyment, mostly from rapid physical motion.
   • 2000, Bob Foster, Birdum or Bust!, Henley Beach, SA: Seaview Press, page 175:

     Up came the revs again, slam the door shut, kick the stick off the throttle and up through the gears, down the others side! Whee! Made it again!

   • 2001, Ricardo L Garcia, Coal camp days: a boy's remembrance:

     She twisted the rubber band extra tight. Sure enough, the tractor spun off much faster. Whee! She really liked to see it go fast on the living room floor.

   • 2009, Phil and Kaja Foglio, Girl Genius, Volume 9, page 81:

     It'll be a secret! Whee!

• (childish expression of enjoyment): whoopee, yay, yeah, yippee

whee (third-person singular simple present whees, present participle wheeing, simple past and past participle wheed)

1. (intransitive) To make a high-pitched sound.
   • 1745, Ornithologia Nova; or a New General History of Birds‎, volume 2, “The nightingale”, page 286:

     What a wheeing dost thou keep, / Thou Minion of the Spring, / All the Winter long you sleep, / And all the Summer long you sing.

   • 1970, Philip José Farmer, The Mad Goblin:

     Bullets ricocheted off the walls and the ceiling, wheeing by him, and his face stung from chips of stone.

2. (intransitive, informal) To cry whee.
   • 2014, Bernard De Koven, A Playful Path‎, page 172:

     Sometimes, we whee together, at the same time, for the same reason, feeling the same thing. And sometimes – these are the best of times – we can’t really tell who started the whee, or who’s wheeing more.

3. (transitive, US, colloquial, dated, often with up) To excite, to arouse, to energize.
   • 1952, Irving Marsh and Edward Ehre, Best Sports Stories, 1952 edition, page 146:

     In Princeton marches of eighty-seven, sixty, seventy-six, fifty-two, fifty-eight, thirty-two and sixty-two yards, in which he had the whole-hearted support of a wheed-up Tiger team, Kazmaier passed for three touchdowns, thirty-three and forty-five yards to wingback Dick Pivirotto, four yards to end Len Lyon.

   • 1957 November 18, “Scoreboard”, in Sports Illustrated‎:

• hewe