It is an enticing sight always for hungry people to see eating going on; up to a certain point it whets appetite, but beyond that it is both insult and injury.
In that resistless spell, for once, The vulture of unrest, That whets its beak upon my heart, Lies charmed within my breast.
I would not give a pin for the society of a female that should seem willing; but give me a wench that hath disdainful looks; For 'tis denial whets an appetite, When proffer'd service doth allay delight.
The exercise of the mind in the morning whets the appetite for the pleasures of the evening, as much as the exercise of the body whets the appetite for dinner.
To war and bold adventure prone, Each buckles on his armour strait, And whets his weapon on the stone, That stands without the cottage gate.
While the Plowman neer at hand, Whistles ore the Furrow'd Land, And the Milkmaid singeth blithe, And the Mower whets his sithe, And every Shepherd tells his tale Under the Hawthorn in the dale.
Curiosity whets a man's interest just as Worcestershire sauce whets his appetite.
Why is it that we are so slow to learn, so unwilling to confess that slavery is the accursed thing which whets the knife of murder, and transforms men, with the exterior of gentlemen and Christians, into fiends?
There like a bird it sits and sings, And whets and claps its silver wings; And, till prepared for longer flight, Waves in its plumes the various light.
Tis harvest time: a mower stands Among the morning wheat and whets His scythe, and for a space forgets The labor of the ripening lands; Then bends, and through the dewy grain His long scythe hisses, and again He swings it in his hands.
Now begins his axe to sharpen, Quickly to an edge he whets it, Using six hard blocks of sandstone, And of softer whetstones, seven.
While Caesar rules, no civil strife Shall break our rest, nor violence rude, Nor rage, that whets the slaughtering knife And plunges wretched towns in feud.
The centuries have bestowed a certain pathetic beauty, they have also taken away much, and the sympathy which these ruined pleasure palaces evoke whets our curiosity to know what they were like in their heyday of joyous revelling.
But history only whets our curiosity, for ancient writers are neglectful or tantalisingly bald in their allusions to Antinous.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "whets" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
