a. Now rare. Forms: 1 hwæten, huaeten, 3 ȝweten, 4 hueten, 5, 6 whetyn, 6 whettyn, whe(a)ton, 7 wheten, 6– wheaten. [OE. hwǽten = MDu. weiten, MHG. weiȥîn: see WHEAT sb. and -EN4.]
1. Composed of the grain or flour of wheat.
Sometimes applied spec. to bread made of the whole grain (‘wholemeal’) as distinct from white bread.
805–31. in Sweet, O. E. Texts, 444. cxx huaetenra hlafa & xxx clenra.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., I. 322. Mid hwætenan meluwe.
c. 1290. St. Cuthbert, 52, in S. Eng. Leg., 360. Clene ȝwetene flour.
1340. Ayenb., 82. Þe wyfman grat myd childe, þet more hi uynt smak in ane zoure epple þanne ine ane huetene lhoue.
c. 1430. Two Cookery-bks., 33. Bynd hym vppe with fflour of Rys, oþer with whetyn floure.
1530. Palsgr., 288/1. Whetynbreed, pain bourgois.
c. 1530. Songs, Carols, etc. (E.E.T.S.), 120. I clynge as doth a wheton cake.
1577. Harrison, England, III. i. 95 b/1, in Holinshed. Wheaton bread, so named because the colour … resembleth the graie wheat.
1603. in J. Nicholl, Comp. Ironm. (1866), 140. Wheate … to be ground into meal and baked into white and wheten bread, and the wheaten to contayne xj oz. the penny wheten loffe, and the three-halfpenny white loves after the same rate.
1638. Penkethman, Artach., H 2. The Law doth appoint three sorts of Bread only to be made, viz. white, wheaten, and houshold.
1709. Act 8 Anne, c. 19. Table, The White Loaves are One Half, and the Wheaten Three Quarters of the Weight of Household Loaves.
1727. De Foe, Syst. Magic, I. i. (1840), 4. Our penny wheaten brown bread loaves.
1818. Colebrooke, Import Colonial Corn, 69. The bread made of this mixed flour is found to be … better than that made with plain wheaten meal.
1844. Stephens, Bk. Farm, II. 367. Rye-bread is denser than wheaten-bread.
1857. Miller, Elem. Chem., Org. (1862), xiii. § 2. 839. Bread made from wheaten flour.
1919. Q. Rev., July, 182. The food and fuel regulations respecting wheaten bread, sugar, and ‘lightless nights’ had been withdrawn.
2. Of or belonging to wheat as a plant; made of the stalks or straw of wheat.
c. 1000. Ags. Gosp., John xii. 24. Þæt hwætene corn wunað ana, buton hyt fealle on eorþan & sy dead.
1552. Huloet, Wheaten branne.
1565. Golding, Ovid’s Met., II. (1587), 17. There waited summer naked starke all saue a wheaten hat.
1597. Gerarde, Herbal, I. i. 1. Apparent shew of wheaten leaues.
1602. Shaks., Ham., V. ii. 41. As Peace should still her wheaten Garland weare.
1681. Grew, Musæum, IV. iii. 376. The Stalk as thick as a Wheaten-straw.
1730. Thomson, Autumn, 1. Crown’d with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf.
1827. Clare, Sheph. Cal., 49. Oft making ‘love-knots’ in the shade, Of blue-green oat or wheaten blade.
1865. Swinburne, Poems & Ball., In Mem. Landor, 9. In many a tender wheaten plot Flowers that were dead Live.
† 3. Wheaten plum = WHEAT-PLUM. Obs.
1542. [see WHEAT-PLUM, quot. 1538].
1552. Huloet, Wheaten plummes, whiche be whyte or yelowe plummes, cærea pruna.
1594. Barnfield, Affect. Sheph., II. xlii. Bullas and wheaton Plumbs.
