B. and F. Wit at sev. Weap. ii. 2.
"Cleanthus, if you want money to-morrow, use me,
I'll trust you while your father's dead."
Mass. Old. Law, i. 1.
"Blessings may be repeated while they cloy."
Waller, Ans. to Suckling.
In Lincolnshire while is used at the present day for until. This is evidently the sense in which whiles is used in Twelfth Night, iv. 3; for Macb. iii. 1 see the note.
Whistling. In falconry the whistle was, for the bird, the sign of starting and of returning. The term of the former was whistle off (Oth. iii. 3) against the wind after game, down the wind if cast off as worthless and untameable. "I have been worth the whistle" (Lear, iv. 2) seems to refer to the whistle of recall. "As a long-winged hawk, when he is first whistled off the fist, mounts aloft, and for his pleasure fetcheth many a circuit in the air, still soaring higher and higher, till he come to his full pitch; and in the end, when the game is sprung, comes down amain, and stoops upon the sudden" (Burt. Anat. of Mel. ii. 1-3).
Who (M. of Ven. ii. 7, et alibi). This pronoun was often used, as here, of things. Hence we still use the gen. whose.
Wild-goose chase (R. and J. ii, 4) was something like our steeple-chase. There were only two riders; and when one got the lead, the other was obliged to follow wheresoever he went.