wether

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈwɛðɚ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈwɛðə/
• Rhymes: -ɛðə(ɹ)
• Homophones: weather, whether (in accents with the wine-whine merger)

From Middle English wether, wethir, wedyr, from Old English weþer (“a wether, ram”), from Proto-Germanic *weþruz (“wether”), from Proto-Indo-European *wet- (“year”). Cognate with Scots weddir, woddir, wadder (“wether”), Dutch weder, weer (“wether”), German Widder (“wether, ram”), Norwegian Bokmål vær (“ram”), Norwegian Nynorsk vêr (“ram”), Swedish vädur (“wether, ram”), Icelandic veður (“wether, ram”), Latin vitulus (“calf”).

• wedder (dialectal)

wether (plural wethers)

1. A castrated buck goat.
2. A castrated ram.
   • c. 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act IV scene i:

     I am a tainted wether of the flock,

     Meetest for death […]

• bellwether

wether (third-person singular simple present wethers, present participle wethering, simple past and past participle wethered)

1. (transitive) To castrate a male sheep or goat.

wether

1. Archaic spelling of weather.
   • 1527, George Joye, The storie of my state after the bishop had receyued the pryours letters‎:

     There was a great fyer in the chamber, the wether was colde, and I saw now and then a Bishop come out;

     (cited after Samuel Roffey Maitland, 1866, p. 8)