whelp
/wɛlp
/noun chiefly archaic
1A puppy.Sometimes mothers will really put up a fuss about me taking their new whelps and putting them in a puppy box.
1.1A cub: let the lioness suckle her whelps
2A boy or young man (often as a disparaging form of address): too high and mighty to call her ‘Mam’—isn’t that so, whelp?...
- I remember your little friend shoving you into one before she because a pincushion, and you blasted me from there, you little whelp.
- What I want to know Nago is if that whelp of a boy is going through with his orders.
- It was directed at those same teachers and bourgeois parents whose sanctions and strictures many of us young whelps so deeply resented.
3 (whelps) Nautical A set of projections on the barrel of a capstan or windlass.
verb [with object]
(Of a female dog) give birth to (a puppy): Copper whelped seven puppies [no object]: a bitch due to whelp...
- Not all shih-tzu mothers do what they are suppose to do, and in these cases, a breeder must act quickly to save the newly whelped shih-tzu puppy.
- If more than four contractures there may be a problem if the Shih Tzu puppy has not been whelped.
- It was the first outing for both of these young brindle bitches which were whelped in February and March 02.
Phrases
in whelp
Origin
Old English hwelp (noun), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch welp and German Welf.