whig1 (hwig)

1. Sour whey. Brockett. [Prov. Eng. and Scotch.] With green cheese, clouted cream, with flawns and custard stor'd, Whig, cyder, and with whey, I domineer a lord. Drayton, Muses' Elysium, vi. Drinke Whig and sowre Milke, whilest I rince my Throat With Burdeaux and Canarie. Heywood , English Traveller (ed. Pearson), i. 2. 2. Buttermilk. Hall i well . [Prov. Eng.] whig2 (hwig), v.; pret. and pp. whigged , ppr. whigging . [Cf. Sc. whiggle , var. of wiggle : see wiggle.] I. in trans . To move at an easy and steady pace; jog. [Scotch.] The Solemn League and Covenant Came whigging up the hills, man. Battle of Killiecrankie (Child's Ballads, VII. 155). To whig awa' wi', to drive briskly on with. Jamie son. I remember hearing a Highland farmer in Eskdale, after giving minute directions to those who drove the hearse of his wife how they were to cro some boggy land, conclude, "Now, lads, whig awa ' wi ' her." [Scotch.] Scott. (Jamie son.) II. trans. To urge forward, as a horse. whig3 (hwig), n. and a. [Formerly also whigg ; prob. short for whiggamore , q. v.] I. n. 1. One of the adherents of the Presbyterian cause in Scotland about the middle of the seventeenth century: a name given in derision. When in the teeth they dar'd our Whigs , An' covenant true blues, man. Burns, Battle of Sheriff-Muir. I doubt I'll hae to tak the hills wi' the wild whigs , as they ca' them, and. be shot down like a mawkin at some dyke-side. Scott, Old Mortality, vii. 2. [ cap.] A member of one of the two great political parties of Great Britain, the other being the Tories (later the Conservatives). The Whigs were the succe ors of the Round heads of the Civil War and the Country party of the Restoration. The name was given to them about 1679 as a reproach by their opponents, the Court party, through a desire to confound them with the rebel Whigs of Scotland (see whig3, 1). The Whigs whiggery after the news came down of Duke Hamilton's defeat, the Ministers animated their people to rise, and march to Edinburgh. And they came up marching on the head of their parishes, with an unheard-of fury, praying and preaching all the way as they came. The Marquis Argile and his party came and headed them, they being about 6,000. This was called the Whiggamor's inroad. And ever after that all that opposed the Court came in contempt to be called Whiggs. And from Scotland the word was brought into England, where it is now one of our unhappy terms of distinction. Bp. Burnet, Hist. Own Times, L. 58. I hate a Whig so much that I'll throw my Husband out of his Election, or throw myself out of the World! a Parcel of canting Rogues; they have always Moderation in their Mouths-rank Resistance in their Hearts-and hate Obedience even to their lawful Wives. Mrs. Cent livre, Gotham Election, i. 1. The prejudice of the Tory is for establishment; the prejudice of the Whig is for innovation. A Tory does not wish to give more real power to Government, but that Government should have more reverence. Then they differ as to the Church. The Tory is not for giving more legal power to the Clergy, but wishes they should have a considerable influence, founded on the opinion of mankind; the Whig is for limiting and watching them with a narrow jealousy. Johnson, in Boswell, an. 1781. 3. [ cap.] In Amer. hist.: (a) A member of the patriotic party during the revolutionary period. The He ians and other foreigners, looking upon that as the right of war, plunder wherever they go, from both Whigs and Tories, without distinction. Robert Morris, Dec. 21, 1776, quoted in Lecky's Eng. in [18th Cent., xiv. ( b ) One of a political party in the United States which grew up, in opposition to the Democratic party, out of the National Republican party. It was first called the Whig party in 1834. Its original principles were extension of nationalizing tendencies, and support of the United States Bank, of a protective tariff, and of a system of internal improvements at national expense. It won the presidential elections of 1840 and 1848, but soon after divided upon the slavery question. It lost its last national election in 1852, and soon after many of its members became temporarily members of the American and Constitutional Union parties, but eventually most of its northern members became Republicans, most of its southern members Democrats. - Conscience-Whig, in U. S. hist., in the last days of the Whig party, one of those northern Whigs who were indisposed to regard the compromise of 1850 as a final settlement of the slavery question: so called from their conscientious objections to such compromises with slavery. - Cotton-Whig, in U. S. hist., in the last days of the Whig party, one of those northern Whigs who were disposed to regard the compromise of 1850 as a final settlement of the slavery question: so called from their supposed partiality to the cotton interest. II. a . Relating to or composed of Whigs, in any use of that word; whiggish: as, Whig measures; a Whig ministry. The hope that America would supply the main materials for the suppre ion of the revolt [the American Revolution] proved wholly chimerical. One of the first acts of the Whig party in every colony was to disarm Tories. Lecky, Eng. in 18th Cent., xiv. The Whig party was always opposed to slavery. But there was a broad and well-understood distinction between Whig opponents of slavery and the fanatical Abolitionists. T. W. Barnes, Thurlow Weed, p. 306. whig4 (hwig), n. A variant of wig2 . [North. Eng. and Scotch.] A cook whose recipes were hopele ly old-fashioned, and who had an exasperating belief in the sufficiency of buttered whigs and home-made marmalade for all require ments. Mrs. Humphry Ward , Robert Elsmere, ii.