Wit
Pronunciation
- enPR: wÄt, IPA: /wɪt/
- Rhymes: -ɪt
- Homophones: whit in accents with the wine-whine merger
Origin 1
From Middle English, from Old English witt ("understanding, intellect, sense, knowledge, consciousness, conscience"), from Proto-Germanic *witjÄ… ("knowledge, reason"), from Proto-Indo-European *weyd-, *wid- ("see, know"). Cognate with Dutch weet, German Witz, Danish vid, Swedish vett, Gothic ðŒ¿ðŒ½ð…ðŒ¹ð„ðŒ¹ (unwiti, "ignorance"), Latin videÅ ("see"). Compare wise.
Full definition of wit
Noun
wit
(plural wits)- (now usually in the plural) Sanity.He's gone completely out of his wits.
- (obsolete usually in the plural) The senses.
- Intellectual ability; faculty of thinking, reasoning.Where she has gone to is beyond the wit of man to say.
- The ability to think quickly; mental cleverness, especially under short time constraints.My father had a quick wit and a steady hand.
- Intelligence; common sense.The opportunity was right in front of you, and you didn't even have the wit to take it!
- Humour, especially when clever or quick.The best man's speech was hilarious, full of wit and charm.
- 1898, Winston Churchill, The Celebrity Chapter 8, 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.
- A person who tells funny anecdotes or jokes; someone witty.Your friend is quite a wit, isn't he?
Synonyms
Derived terms
Origin 2
From Old English witan, from Proto-Germanic *witanÄ…, from Proto-Indo-European *weyd-, *wid- ("see, know"). Cognate with Dutch weten, German wissen, Swedish veta, and Latin videÅ ("I see"). Compare guide.
Verb
verb
see #Conjugation, below for this verb’s conjugation- (ambitransitive, chiefly archaic) Know, be aware of construed with of when used intransitively.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.
- 1849, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, St. Luke the Painter, lines 5–8but soon having wistHow sky-breadth and field-silence and this dayAre symbols also in some deeper way,She looked through these to God and was God’s priest.
Conjugation
{||-| valign="top" |{| class="prettytable"|-! Infinitive| to wit|-! Imperative| wit|-! Present participle| witting|-! Past participle| wist|}| valign="top" |{| class="prettytable"|-!! Present indicative! Past indicative|-! First-person singular| I wot| I wist|-! Second-person singular| thou wost, wot(test) archaic; you wot| thou wist(est) archaic, you wist|-! Third-person singular| he/she/it wot| he/she/it wist|-! First-person plural| we wit(e)| we wist|-! Second-person plural| ye wit(e) archaic; you wit(e)| ye wist archaic, you wist|-! Third-person plural| they wit(e)| they wist|}|}Usage notes
As a preterite-present verb, the third-person singular indicative form is not wits but wot; the plural indicative forms conform to the infinitive: we wit, ye wit, they wit.