wit
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: From Middle English wit, witt, wyt, from Old English witt (“mind, sanity, sense, understanding”), from Proto-West Germanic *witi, from Proto-Germanic *witją (“knowledge; reason; wit”), from Proto-Germanic *witaną (“to know”), from Proto-Indo-European *wóyde (“to know”), from *weyd- (“to see”).
Cognates
Cognate with Dutch wit (“knowledge”), German and Luxembourgish Witz (“joke; humour, wit”), Low German Weet (“knowledge; idea; inkling”), Yiddish וויץ (vits, “joke”), Danish vid (“wit”), Faroese and Icelandic vit (“intelligence, wits; reason, sense; knowledge; awareness, sentience”), Norwegian Bokmål and Swedish vett (“intelligence, sense, wit”), Norwegian Nynorsk vett, vit (“sense, wits”), Gothic 𐌿𐌽𐍅𐌹𐍄𐌹 (unwiti, “folly, ignorance”); also Breton gouzout (“to know”), Cornish godhvos, goffos (“to know”), Irish feadair (“to know”), Welsh gwybod (“to know”), Latin videō (“to see”), Ancient Greek οἶδ’ (oîd’), οἶδα (oîda, “to know”), Albanian vizë (“line, stripe, track; dash”), Latvian veids (“form, kind, mode, type”), Lithuanian veidas (“face; front; appearance, aspect, look”), Belarusian ве́даць (vjédacʹ, “to know”), Bulgarian вям (vjam, “to know”), Czech vědět (“to know”), Polish wiedzieć (“to know”), Russian ве́дать (védatʹ, “to know”), Serbo-Croatian vedeti, viedieti (“to know”), Slovak vedieť (“to know”), Slovene vedeti (“to know”), Ukrainian ві́дати (vídaty, “to know; to deal, manage”), Armenian գիտեմ (gitem, “I know”), գիտենալ (gitenal), գիտնալ (gitnal, “to know”), Avestan 𐬬𐬀𐬉𐬛 (vaēd, “find”), 𐬬𐬌𐬛 (vid, “know, understand”), Persian نوید (navid / nawīd, nuwēd, “invitation; annunciation; good news”), Tocharian A ime (“awareness, consciousness, memory, thought”), Tocharian B īme (“awareness, consciousness, memory, thought”), ūwe (“educated, knowledgeable, learned”), Sanskrit विद् (vid, “to know; to find; to consider as”). Compare wise.
Inflected forms:
form: wits
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: no-table-tags
pos: verb
tags: table-tags
form: glossary
pos: verb
tags: inflection-template
form: wit
pos: verb
tags: infinitive
form: wot
pos: verb
tags: first-person
present
singular
form: wist
pos: verb
tags: first-person
past
singular
form: wost
pos: verb
tags: present
second-person
singular
form: wottest
pos: verb
tags: present
second-person
singular
form: wistest
pos: verb
tags: past
second-person
singular
form: wot
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: wist
pos: verb
tags: past
singular
third-person
form: wit
pos: verb
tags: plural
present
form: wist
pos: verb
tags: past
plural
form: -
pos: verb
tags: subjunctive
form: wit
pos: verb
tags: imperative
present
form: -
pos: verb
tags: imperative
past
form: witting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: wist
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
Senses:
gloss: Sanity.
pos: noun
tags: countable
plural-normally
uncountable
examples: He's gone completely out of his wits.
gloss: The senses.
pos: noun
tags: countable
plural-normally
uncountable
examples: Keep your wits about you.
gloss: Intellectual ability; faculty of thinking, reasoning.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Where she has gone to is beyond the wit of man to say.
gloss: The ability to think quickly; mental cleverness, especially under short time constraints.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: My father had a quick wit and a steady hand.
gloss: Intelligence; common sense.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: The opportunity was right in front of you, and you didn't even have the wit to take it!
I gif the witt, I gif the strenght, / of all thou sees, of brede & lengthe; / thou shall be wonder wise. / Myrth and Ioy to haue at will, / All thi likyng to fulfill, / and dwell in paradise.
Wel, wel (Meander) thou art deepely read:
And hauing thee, I haue a iewell ſure:
Go on my Lord, and giue your charge I ſay,
Thy wit wil make vs Conquerors to day.
O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:
To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.
gloss: Humour, especially when clever or quick.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: The best man's speech was hilarious, full of wit and charm.
Wit is just as much put upon—blamed for a thousand impertinences over which it would not have held for a moment its glittering shield; it is like the radiant fairy doomed to wander over earth, concealed and transformed, and only allowed on rare occasions to shine forth in its true and sparkling form. It is well that wit is an impalpable and ethereal substance, or it must long since have evaporated in indignation at that peculiarly wretched and mistaken race, its imitators.
The humor of my proposition appealed more strongly to Miss Trevor than I had looked for, and from that time forward she became her old self again;[…]. Our table in the dining-room became again the abode of scintillating wit and caustic repartee, Farrar bracing up to his old standard, and the demand for seats in the vicinity rose to an animated competition.
Evelyn Peters: "Don't worry, Marge. Her idea of wit is nothing more than an incisive observation humorously phrased and delivered with impeccable timing".
[…] the cemetery – which people of shattering wit like Sampson never tired of calling ‘the dead centre of town’ […]
gloss: A person who tells funny anecdotes or jokes; someone witty.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Your friend is quite a wit, isn't he?
Tuc[ca]. […] Can thy Author doe it impudently enough? / Hiſt[rio]. O, I warrant you, Captaine: and ſpitefully inough too; he ha's one of the moſt ouerflowing villanous wits, in Rome. He will ſlander any man that breathes; If he diſguſt him. / Tucca. I'le know the poor, egregious, nitty Raſcall; and he haue ſuch commendable Qualities, I'le cheriſh him: […]
[…] here were no Gibers, Cenſurers, Backbiters, Pick-pockets, Highwaymen, Houſebreakers, Attorneys, Bawds, Buffoons, Gameſters, Politicians, Wits, ſplenetick tedious Talkers, Controvertiſts, Raviſhers, Murderers, Robbers, Virtuoſo's; […]
gloss: To know, be aware of (constructed with of when used intransitively).
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
examples: You committed terrible actions — to wit, murder and theft — and should be punished accordingly.
They are meddling in matters that men should not wit of.
Truly, said fair Elaine, I shall do all that I may do, for as fain would I know and wit where he is become as you or any of his kin, or queen Guenever, and cause great enough have I thereto as well as any other. And wit ye well, said fair Elaine to Sir Bors, I would lose my life for him rather than he should be hurt.
And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.
but soon having wist
How sky-breadth and field-silence and this day
Are symbols also in some deeper way,
She looked through these to God and was God’s priest.
Synonyms: repartee
Related words: acid
biting
cutting
lambent
Derived words: afterwit
brevity is the soul of wit
collect one's wits
dimwit
forewit
fuckwit
gather one's wits
half-wit
have one’s wits about one
inwit
lackwit
midwit
mother wit
native wit
nitwit
scare out of one’s wits
staircase wit
wit-cracker
wit-cracking
witcraft
witful
witless
witling
witter
witticism
wittol
wit tooth
witty
Translations:
lang: Bulgarian
word: остроу́мие
roman: ostroúmie
lang: Czech
word: vtip
lang: Czech
word: humor
lang: Danish
word: vid
lang: Esperanto
word: humuro
lang: French
word: mot d'esprit
lang: German
word: Witz
lang: Ancient Greek
word: ἀστεϊσμός
roman: asteïsmós
lang: Italian
word: senso umoristico
lang: Italian
word: motto di spirito
lang: Italian
word: spirito
lang: Italian
word: prontezza di spirito
lang: Italian
word: brio
lang: Latin
word: argūtia
lang: Latin
word: facetiae
lang: Latvian
word: asprātība
lang: Māori
word: ngutu atamai
lang: Norwegian
word: vidd
lang: Plautdietsch
word: Witsichkjeit
lang: Portuguese
word: humorístico
lang: Portuguese
word: humor
lang: Portuguese
word: engraçado
lang: Russian
word: остроу́мие
roman: ostroúmije
lang: Spanish
word: humor
lang: Spanish
word: gracia
lang: Spanish
word: mordacidad
lang: Spanish
word: chiste espontáneo
lang: Spanish
word: gracejo
lang: Spanish
word: donaire
lang: Spanish
word: donosura