Sc. and dial. Forms: α. 5 whytrate, (-ratche), whitratt, whytrat, Sc. quhitrat, 5, 9 whitrat, 6 Sc. quhittrat, quhitred, fittret, quhittret, 7–8 whitred, 7, 9 whittret, 8–9 whiteret, 9 whitteret, whittrit, (whutthroat), 8– whitret. β. 8–9 whitrick, 9 whitrack, (w(h)utterick, -ock, whuttorock), whittrick, whitterick. (See also Eng. Dial. Dict.) [The earliest known forms suggest a compound of WHITE a. and RAT sb.; the types whitret, whitred, whitrick exemplify Sc. tendency to modify the sounds of final syllables.] A weasel; also, a stoat.
α. c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 525/2. Whytrate (K. whitratt, P. whytratche).
c. 1480. Henryson, Trial of Fox, 116 (Harl. MS.). The quhuirand quhitret with the quhasill went.
1486. Bk. St. Albans, Hunting, f iiij b. The Graye, the Fox, the Squyrell, the whitrat, the Sot, and the Pulcatte.
1536. Bellenden, Cron. Scot. (1821), I. p. xxxiii. Martrikis, bevers, quhitredis, and toddis.
1590. Burel, in Watson, Coll. Sc. Poems, II. (1709), 21. The Fumart and the Fittret straue, The deip and howest hole to haue. Ibid., 22. Out come the Quhittret.
1639. Sir R. Gordon, Geneal. Hist. Earld. Sutherld. (1813), 3. Brocks, skuyrrells, whittrets, weasels, otters.
1681. Colvil, Whigs Supplic. (1751), p. xi. As harmless as a whitred without teeth.
1684. Sibbald, Scotia Illustr., II. II. 11. Mustela vulgaris ea est, quæ Whitred nostratibus dicitur.
1790. Alex. Wilson, Disconsolate Wren, Poet. Wks. (1846), 96. Ony whitret’s direfu’ jaws.
1815. Scott, Guy M., xxiii. We maun of like whittrets before the whole clanjamfray be doun upon us.
1824. Mactaggart, Gallovid. Encycl., 275. The whut-throat or weazle, and the hoodie, have often bloody wars with other.
1880. ‘Shirley’ (J. Skelton), in Fraser’s Mag., May, 646. She was as hardy as the plovers whose shrill challenge when a whitret or a fox came prowling past disturbed the mystery of the silence and the darkness.
β. c. 1800. R. Jamieson’s Pop. Ball. (1806), I. 294. Her minnie had hain’d the warl, And the whitrack-skin had routh.
1802. G. V. Sampson, Statist. Surv. Londonderry, 455. The weazle (provincially whitrick).
1861. R. Quinn, Heather Lintie (1863), 145. He yokes him fairly wi’ his teeth As Brush wad dune a whitterick.
