whin Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun very spiny and dense evergreen shrub with fragrant golden-yellow flowers; common throughout western Europe
    Irish gorse; Ulex europaeus; gorse; furze.
  2. noun small Eurasian shrub having clusters of yellow flowers that yield a dye; common as a weed in Britain and the United States; sometimes grown as an ornamental
    dyer's greenweed; woadwaxen; dyeweed; woodwaxen; dyer's-broom; greenweed; Genista tinctoria.
  3. noun any of various hard colored rocks (especially rocks consisting of chert or basalt)
    whinstone.

WordNet

Whin noun
Etymology
W. chwyn weeds, a single weed.
Definitions
  1. (Bot.) (a) Gorse; furze. See Furze.
    Through the whins, and by the cairn. Burns.
    (b) Woad-waxed. Gray.
  2. Same as Whinstone. Prov. Eng.

Webster 1913