a. Sc. and n. dial. Forms: 6 quhaten, quhattane, -in(e, whattin, 9 whaten, -an, whatten. Also β (with indef. art.) what’n a, whatna. [Reduced form of WHATKIN a.; cf. THAT’N, THISSEN.] Properly, What kind of; hence, what.
a. 1510. Douglas, K. Hart, I. 245. Quhat will ȝe saye me now for quhaten plycht?
c. 1560. A. Scott, Poems (S.T.S.), xxviii. 16. Quhattane ane glaikit fule am I.
1561. Winȝet, Bk. Questions, Wks. (S.T.S.), I. 57. Quhattin a Papist I am in this samin ruid Buik of Questionis … I tak on hand to preue … the maist haly Martyris,… to hef bene the samin Papistis.
1600. [? Lyly], Maydes Metam., III. ii. Priapus quoth a? Whattin a God might that bee?
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., xxxix. I wish I had whaten books ye wanted.
1825. Brockett, N. C. Gloss., Whatten o’clock is’t?
1891. Morris, Poems by the Way, 157. And whatten a bed for me?
β. a. 1796. Burns, ‘There was a lad.’ But what’n a day o’ what’n a style I doubt it’s hardly worth the while To be sae nice wi’ Robin.
1816. Scott, Antiq., xxxix. But whatna wife ’s this, wi’ her creel on her back?
1899. Crockett, Kit Kennedy, ix. 63. Think, oot o’ whatna pit the laddie has been digged.
