wye
Pluralwyes
Pluralwyes
- 1A Y-shaped object or junction, especially a connection where three sections of road or railroad track come together in a Y.
Engineers built a wye so locomotives could reverse direction without a turntable.
The surveyor mounted his instrument on a wye level before taking readings.
Similarfork
Note
Two trades use the word. In hose and cable work, a wye is the fitting that splits one line into two. On the railroad, it is track laid in a Y: a train that goes around it comes out facing the other way. The word also works as a modifier, as in a wye level or wye-connected, and it gives rise to the railroad verb.
- 2The spoken name of the Latin-script letter Y or y.
The crossword clue called for a five-letter word ending in a wye.
Sign painters charge extra for a letter like the wye with its angled strokes.
Note
The letter's name has a short and murky history. It appears as wi around 1200, and its origin is uncertain; it may be borrowed from Old French ui or gui. The spelled-out form is useful when the letter itself is the topic. Examples include reading variables aloud as ex, wye and zee, or spelling a word out letter by letter.
- 3To reverse the direction of a train by routing it through a wye.
The dispatcher told the crew to wye the locomotive at Millbrook.
Yard workers wyed the freight train before dawn.
Note
Railroad crews use this verb for turning a train end-for-end by running it through the legs of a wye, instead of using a turntable or balloon loop. It matters most when a train has no control cab at its far end. The term can even appear in labor disputes, where wying a train at a station has been argued to count as yard work.
- 4To form or shape something so that it takes the form of a wye.
Engineers wyed the duct so air could flow into two rooms at once.
She wants to wye the wire to make a small antenna.
Note
This verb is met mostly in its past participle, used as an adjective: a hose divided into two or more lines produces wyed lines. The spelling of the -ing form wavers between wying and wyeing, and both are acceptable. The past tense is simply wyed.
Less common meanings
- 5A heroic figure; more generally, a man or person, in poetic usage.
Note
Here the word loosens from the fighter of the warrior sense to mean a hero, and then any man or person at all. In verse the line between the meanings is thin: a wye who slew the dragon is warrior and hero at once. Like its sibling, it is obsolete and poetic, suited to archaic narrative rather than ordinary prose.
- 6A warrior or fighter, in poetic usage.
The saga named every wye who had fought at the ford.
No wye among them feared the coming battle.
Note
This is a different word altogether. It comes from Old English wiga and shares only its spelling with the name of Y. It is poetic and obsolete, so outside historical or deliberately archaic verse a reader will take it as the letter. Use it only where the old heroic register is the point, as in a saga's roll of fighters.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
Attested as "wi" around 1200, its origin is uncertain. It was perhaps borrowed from Old French "ui" or "gui".
From Old English "wiga".