Inwit
Pronunciation
- IPA: /ˈɪnwɪt/
Origin
From Middle English inwit ("mind, reason, intellect, understanding; soul, spirit; feeling; the collection of inner faculties; one of five inner faculties; one of the outer bodily senses.; inward awareness of right or wrong, conscience"), from Old English *inwitt, inġewitnes ("consciousness, conscience, knowledge, knowing"), equivalent to - + wit.
Full definition of inwit
Noun
inwit
(uncountable)- (archaic) Inward knowledge or understanding.
- "Will it make you happy?"
"Probably not," Kai said irritably. "Inwit tells me that you're trouble from the beginning." — Midori Snyder, Sadar's Keep, A Tom Doherty Associates Book, New York, 1991 - (obsolete) Conscience; inward sense of morality.
- unknown date Speaking to me. They wash and tub and scrub. Agenbite of inwit. Conscience. — James Joyce, Ulysses, 1922
- "I knew that was so. Every time that inwit twanged -- I have conscience like you, reverend sir!" -- — Marcia Davenport, Constant Image, 1960
- unknown date Inwit, a term for conscience, suggests the inner senses and interior sensibility, which accords nicely with the current state of the senses under the regime of electric technologies. — Marshall McLuhan, The Agenbite of Outwit, 1998
- "What's the matter? Can't a ballplayer - an ex-ballplayer - have a literate vocabulary?"
"Sure. But 'qualm?' "
"How about 'the aginbite of inwit' then?" — Paul Di Filippo, Seeing is believing, Fantasy & Science Fiction: Apr 2003:. Vol. 104, Iss. 4; pg. 131