wean

American  

[ween] / win /

verb (used with object)

1. to accustom (a child or young animal) to food other than mother's milk; cause to lose the need to suckle or turn to the mother for food.

2. to withdraw (a person, the affections, one's dependency, etc.) from some object, habit, form of enjoyment, or the like.

   The need to reduce had weaned us from rich desserts.

---

verb phrase

1. wean on to accustom to; to familiarize with from, or as if from, childhood.

   a brilliant student weaned on the classics;

   suburban kids weaned on rock music.

wean ¹ British  

/ wiːn /

verb

1. to cause (a child or young mammal) to replace mother's milk by other nourishment

2. (usually foll by from) to cause to desert former habits, pursuits, etc

---

wean ² British  

/ weɪn, wiːn /

noun

1. dialect a child; infant

---

Other Word Forms

• postweaning
  adjective
• preweaning
  adjective
• unweaned
  adjective
• weanedness
  noun
• weaning
  noun

Etymology

Origin of wean

First recorded before 1000; Middle English wenen, Old English wenian; cognate with Dutch wennen, German gewöhnen, Old Norse venja “to accustom”

Explanation

To wean yourself from something is to gradually eliminate that thing from your life. You may want to wean yourself from watching too much TV, drinking two pots of coffee every morning, or obsessively reading the celebrity columns. To wean an infant — human or animal — you gradually reduce consumption of mother’s milk or bottled milk until the little one is no longer nursing or bottle-feeding. If you want to wean yourself from eating chocolate chip cookies, go from eating eight a day to only seven for the next few days, then to six for a few days and so on until you're no longer eating any chocolate chip cookies.

Example Sentences

Appeared in the May 5, 2026, print edition as 'RFK Jr. Seeks to Wean Some People Off Antidepressants'.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 4, 2026

Q. Re: She Doesn’t Need to Night Wean: I completely disagree with your assertion that a 14-month-old should be sleeping through the night.

From Slate • Jan. 27, 2015

Neither are the bone-weary hackers who trudge out of Wean Hall at dawn's first light.

From Time Magazine Archive

The hour approaches midnight on the campus of Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, but in Wean Hall, C.M.U.'s computer center, it might as well be high noon.

From Time Magazine Archive

Wean all at once, with bitter aloes or some similar devices; and change the diet suddenly.

From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. V, October, 1850, Volume I. by

Related Words

• discourage