wyspe

See also: wyspę and Wyspę

Middle English

Alternative forms

• wips, wisp, wysp, wispe, wippis, wesp

Etymology

Perhaps related to whisk (“bunch of twigs, hair”). Cognate to Dutch wisp, dialectal Danish visp, Swedish visp, Norwegian Bokmål visp, etc.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wisp/, /wips/

Noun

wyspe (plural wyspes or wyspe)

1. A package, stick or pile of straw, a wisp:
   1. Such a bundle used to clean livestock of dirt.
   2. (rare) Such a bundle shaped into a circle or torus.
   3. (rare) Such a bundle lighted afire and used as a light source.
2. (glassblowing, obsolete, rare) A fifteenth-century unit for measuring window glass.

Descendants

• English: wisp
• Scots: wisp, wusp

References

• “wisp(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-11-28.