Definition of "wean"

wean¹

/wiːn/

verb
third-person singular simple present weans, present participle weaning, simple past and past participle weaned
1. (transitive) To cease giving breast milk to an offspring; to accustom and reconcile (a child or young animal) to a want or deprivation of mother's milk; to take from the breast or udder.
  Quotations
  Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned.
  1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Genesis 21:8
2. (intransitive) To cease to depend on the mother's milk for nutrition.
3. (transitive, by extension, normally "wean off") To cause to quit something to which one is addicted, dependent, or habituated.
  Quotations
  With Marvin getting older ... and walking now ... I thought it was time to start weaning him off of his bottle.
  2004 May 3, Tom Armstrong, Marvin (comic)
  The troubles of age were intended […] to wean us gradually from our fondness of life.
  1727, Jonathan Swift, (Please provide the book title or journal name)‎
  Dalai Lama: "Then, I suggested, “Drink much less vodka.” Instead of that, they traditionally also drink horse milk—"Oliver: "Wait, hold on, you tried to wean them off vodka by giving them horse milk?"Dalai Lama: "Oh yes, and they follow."
  March 6, 2017, John Oliver, “Interview with the Dalai Lama”, in Last Week Tonight
4. (intransitive, by extension) To cease to depend.
5. (transitive, by extension, obsolete) To raise, to help grow toward maturity
  Quotations
  For they are friends that help to weane my ſtate,Till men and kingdomes help to ſtrengthen it: […]
  c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, (please specify the page)

wean²

/ˈwiː(ə)n/

noun
plural weans
1. (Scotland, Ulster) A small child.
  Quotations
  I, being but a yearling wean.
  1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Third Book”, in Aurora Leigh, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1857
  And there were darker tales in the countryside, of weans stolen, of lassies misguided, of innocent beasts cruelly tortured, and in one and all there came in the name of the wife of the Skerburnfoot.
  1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide
  Pigs, cows and sheep and wee ducks, that was what he bought and it was just for weans and wee lasses. I said it to my maw.Oh it is not weans it is children. Oh Kieron, it is children and girls, do not say weans and lasses.
  2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy‎, Penguin 2009, page 92

Definition of "wean"

wean1

verb

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wean2

noun

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wean¹

wean²