Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use whinny in a sentence

11 example sentences · noun, verb

Whinny means a gentle neigh. Example: “When my wife and I heard a plaintive whinny from our laundry room the other day, we knew that our old dryer had cycled its last load.”

Examples of whinny by meaning

nounA gentle neigh.

  • When my wife and I heard a plaintive whinny from our laundry room the other day, we knew that our old dryer had cycled its last load.2026 January 16, Danny Heitman, “An empty nester’s ode to the cycles of laundry – and life”, in The Christian Science Monitor

verbTo make a gentle neigh.

  • Cattle lowed here and there, and horses whinnied to be fed.1904 May, Winston Churchill, The Crossing, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, book I (The...
  • A pony whinnied a short distance from the hut.1914 October – 1916 July, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter XIII, in The Mucker, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., published...

More sentences with whinny

  • Whinnying it went to a stand of sweet grass ang began pulling them out by the clumpful.1978, Melanie V. Talag, The Sanchezes of Old Manila: A Historical Novel Set in the 1890's. From the entry clumpful
  • And gigglers, God knows, gigglers, rivaling the pony whinnies of the Livery Stable Blues.1918, Carl Sandburg, “Band Concert”, in Cornhuskers, page 24. From the entry giggler
  • Beholding his waddlesome approach out of the tail of her eye, the white animal would whinny a dignified and conservative welcome.2021, Irvin S. Cobb, Old Judge Priest. From the entry waddlesome
  • At full volume, Doreen's whinnying laugh could shatter glass.2005, Merline Lovelace, The Last Bullet (Cleo North Trilogy; 3), Ontario: Mira Books, →ISBN, page 15. From the entry bray
  • “That ole black hoss let out a whinny.”1952, Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, Penguin Books (2014), page 563. From the entry hoss
  • “Eddie!” whinnied Daley, the distraught worshipper of the bang-tails.1934, Stanley Walker, City Editor, published 1999, page 99. From the entry bangtail
  • The second movement, the allegro ironico, is a variation on the well-known theme “Je m’en fous.” An ape-like mockery whinnies through it.1923, Paul Rosenfeld, Musical Chronicle (1917–1923), page 81. From the entry apess
  • Once there was a moment where the sun beat through the fog, and they discovered they were surrounded on all sides by dabchicks whinnying and diving.2016, Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent, Serpentʼs Tail (2017), page 396. From the entry dabchick

Meaning of whinny

  1. noun A gentle neigh.
  2. verb To make a gentle neigh.

Full definition of whinny

Questions about whinny in a sentence

How do you use whinny in a sentence?
Whinny is used as a noun and verb. For example: “When my wife and I heard a plaintive whinny from our laundry room the other day, we knew that our old dryer had cycled its last load.”
What is a short sentence with whinny?
““That ole black hoss let out a whinny.””
What does whinny mean?
Whinny means a gentle neigh.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: whinny (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use whinny in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/whinny. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.