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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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About this entry:
First published 1976 (SND Vol. X).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

Quotation dates: 1837-1875, 1929

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WHEETIE, adj. Also wheety, wheaty, whittie, quheetie. Mean, ungenerous, stingy, scurvy, shabby (Abd., Kcd. 1825 Jam.; ne.Sc. 1974); underhand, shifty, evasive (Kcd. 1880 Jam., whittie). [′ʍiti]Abd. 1837 Abd. Shaver (Oct.) 392:
Warbling some of his sweetest songs for a wheetie bottle of porter.Abd. 1875 W. Alexander My Ain Folk 122:
To grip at a' that they can get, though it sud be never so oonrizzonable or wheety-like.Abd. 1929 Banffshire Jnl. (29 Jan.) 2:
Fut can ye dee? Ye goakit stirks Ye're nae that scant o' wheety quirks.

[The fact that, though the word is peculiar to ne.Sc., the initial wh- is retained suggests that the word is of relatively recent orig., poss. a deriv. of Wheet, n.2, sc. 'paltry, trifling, obsessed by small things'.]

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