Whit
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See also: whit
English
[edit]Etymology 1
[edit]Noun
[edit]Whit (plural Whits)
- The season of Whitsuntide.
Derived terms
[edit]Etymology 2
[edit]Shortening of the surname of Dick Whittington, London mayor who funded the rebuilding of the prison.
Proper noun
[edit]the Whit
- (originally thieves' cant, now archaic or historical) Newgate Prison in London, England (particularly as it was in the 15- and 1600s).
- 1951, Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman:
- A Bow Street Runner says "I knew a cove as talked the way you do – leastways, in the way of business I knew him! In fact, you remind me of him very strong […] He was on the dub-lay, and very clever with his fambles. He ended up in the Whit, o’ course."
- 2020 May 5, Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century, Verso Books, →ISBN:
- One of the strong drinks brewed in the Whit, a place as noted for the variety of its potions as the irony of its expressions, was called 'South Sea'. The gin brewed in Newgate was […]