sit
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: Buddhism
business
government
law
lifestyle
mining
religion
Etymology: Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *sed-
Proto-Indo-European *-yeti
Proto-Indo-European *sédyeti
Proto-Germanic *sitjaną
Proto-West Germanic *sittjan
Old English sittan
Middle English sitten
English sit
From Middle English sitten, from Old English sittan, from Proto-West Germanic *sittjan, from Proto-Germanic *sitjaną, from Proto-Indo-European *sed- (“sit”).
Cognates
Cognate with West Frisian sitte, Low German sitten, Dutch zitten, German sitzen, Swedish sitta, Norwegian Bokmål sitte, Norwegian Nynorsk sitja, Danish sidde, Faroese sita, Icelandic sitja; and with Irish suigh, Latin sedeo, Russian сиде́ть (sidétʹ).
Inflected forms:
form: sits
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: sitting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: sat
pos: verb
tags: past
form: sate
pos: verb
tags: dated
past
poetic
form: sat
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: sate
pos: verb
tags: dated
participle
past
poetic
form: sitten
pos: verb
tags: archaic
dialectal
participle
past
form: no-table-tags
pos: verb
tags: table-tags
form: glossary
pos: verb
tags: inflection-template
form: sit
pos: verb
tags: infinitive
form: sit
pos: verb
tags: first-person
present
singular
form: sat
pos: verb
tags: first-person
past
singular
form: sate
pos: verb
tags: dated
first-person
past
poetic
singular
form: sit
pos: verb
tags: present
second-person
singular
form: sat
pos: verb
tags: past
second-person
singular
form: sate
pos: verb
tags: dated
past
poetic
second-person
singular
form: sattest
pos: verb
tags: past
second-person
singular
form: sits
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: sat
pos: verb
tags: past
singular
third-person
form: sate
pos: verb
tags: dated
past
poetic
singular
third-person
form: sit
pos: verb
tags: plural
present
form: sat
pos: verb
tags: past
plural
form: sate
pos: verb
tags: dated
past
plural
poetic
form: sit
pos: verb
tags: present
subjunctive
form: sat
pos: verb
tags: past
subjunctive
form: sate
pos: verb
tags: dated
past
poetic
subjunctive
form: sit
pos: verb
tags: imperative
present
form: -
pos: verb
tags: imperative
past
form: sitting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: sat
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: sitten
pos: verb
tags: archaic
dialectal
participle
past
form: sits
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: To be in a position in which the upper body is upright and supported by the buttocks.
pos: verb
tags: copulative
intransitive
examples: After a long day of walking, it was good just to sit and relax.
You're finishing the chowder if you sit there (motionless) all evening!
He is so fayre, withoutten les, / he semys full well to sytt on des.
This were as good as curds for our Jone, / When at a night we ſitten by the fire.
So saying, she sate down at a little distance upon the bench on which Allan M‘Aulay was placed, and tuning her clairshach, a small harp, about thirty inches in height, she accompanied it with her voice.
[…] and I am old enough to remember how often I have seen the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire, about eight in the morning (when I was at Bath in 91 or 92), returning from the parade, where she had sate up the live-long night with her sister, Lady Duncannon; it can therefore be no disgrace to appear as if you felt for your daughter.
[…] And easy, smiling, seasoned sound, / Sate the king when healths went round.
gloss: To move oneself into such a position.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: I asked him to sit.
gloss: To occupy a given position.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: The dishes are still sitting on the table!
The temple has sat atop that hill for centuries.
Jim's pet parrot sat on his left shoulder.
The Yellow Sea sits between the Korean Peninsula and China.
gloss: To remain in a state of repose; to rest; to abide; to rest in any position or condition.
pos: verb
tags: copulative
intransitive
examples: And Moses said to […] the children of Reuben, Shall your brothren go to war, and shall ye sit here?
Like a demigod here sit I in the sky.
gloss: To be a member of a deliberative body.
pos: verb
examples: I currently sit on a standards committee.
gloss: Of a legislative or, especially, a judicial body such as a court, to be in session.
pos: verb
examples: In what city is the circuit court sitting for this session?
gloss: To lie, rest, or bear; to press or weigh.
pos: verb
examples: The calamity sits heavy on us.
gloss: To be adjusted; to fit.
pos: verb
examples: Your new coat sits well.
This new and gorgeous garment, majesty, / Sits not so easy on me as you think.
gloss: To be accepted or acceptable; to work.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: How will this new contract sit with the workers?
I don’t think it will sit well.
The violence in these video games sits awkwardly with their stated aim of educating children.
gloss: To cause to be seated or in a sitting posture; to furnish a seat to.
pos: verb
tags: causative
transitive
examples: Sit him in front of the TV and he might watch for hours.
gloss: To accommodate in seats; to seat.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The dining room table sits eight comfortably.
I sat me weary on a pillar's base, / And leaned against the shaft
gloss: To babysit.
pos: verb
tags: US
ambitransitive
examples: I'm going to sit for them on Thursday.
I need to find someone to sit my kids on Friday evening for four hours.
I saw […] Mrs. Turman, who sometimes sat Billy when Steff and I went out […]
Sitting was a “quintessentially American experience,” Yasemin Besen-Cassino, a Montclair State University sociologist and the author of The Cost of Being a Girl: Working Teens and the Origins of the Gender Wage Gap, told me.
gloss: To take, to undergo or complete (an examination or test).
pos: verb
tags: Australia
New-Zealand
UK
transitive
gloss: To cover and warm eggs for hatching, as a fowl; to brood; to incubate.
pos: verb
examples: The partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not.
gloss: To take a position for the purpose of having some artistic representation of oneself made, such as a picture or a bust.
pos: verb
examples: I'm sitting for a painter this evening.
gloss: To have position, as at the point blown from; to hold a relative position; to have direction.
pos: verb
examples: like a good miller that knows how to grind, which way soever the wind sits
Sits the wind in that quarter?
gloss: To keep one's seat when faced with (a blow, attack); to endure, to put up with.
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
transitive
examples: Louisa, who […] had but ill born the commencement of this conversation, could sit it no longer, and hastily throwing up the sash, complained of the intense heat of the room.
gloss: An act of sitting.
pos: noun
gloss: Subsidence of the roof of a coal mine.
pos: noun
gloss: An event, usually lasting one full day or more, where the primary goal is to sit in meditation.
pos: noun
tags: rare
Synonyms: be found
be situate
Translations: