hight

• highte

• Rhymes: -aɪt
• IPA^(key): /haɪt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Homophone: height

From Middle English highten, variant of hoten (“to name, to be named”), from Old English hātan. The stem of the word was remodelled by analogy with the simple past form hight, from Old English hēht. Cognate with Scots hecht, Dutch heten, German heißen, etc.

hight (third-person singular simple present hights, present participle highting, simple past and past participle hight)

1. (archaic, transitive) To call, name.

   King Arthur's court was hight Camelot.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene‎^[1], page 209:

     He that made loue vnto the eldeſt Dame, Was hight Sir Huddibras, an hardy man […]

   • 1812, Lord Byron, “Canto I”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. A Romaunt, London: […] [F]or John Murray, […]; William Blackwood, Edinburgh; and John Cumming, Dublin; by Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC, stanza III:

     Childe Harold was he hight.

   • 1905, Howard Pyle, “The Story of Launcelot”, in The Story of the Champions of the Round Table‎^[2], New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, page 66:

     “Lord,” said Sir Launcelot, “I am hight Launcelot, and am surnamed ‘He of the Lake.’”

2. (archaic, copulative, with a name as complement) To be called or named.

   I hight Sir Galahad.

   • c. 1547, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, The faithful Lover declareth his Pains and his uncertain Joys, and with only Hope recomforteth somewhat his woful Heart:

     Bright was her hue, and Geraldine she hight.

   • 1567, Ovid, The.xv.Bookes of P. Ouidius Naſo, entytuled Metamorphoſis, tranſlated oute of Latin into Engliſh meeter, by Arthur Golding, Gentleman:

     In all the worlde one onely face of nature did abide, which Chaos hight

   • c. 1595–1596 (date written), W. Shakespere [i.e., William Shakespeare], A Pleasant Conceited Comedie Called, Loues Labors Lost. […] (First Quarto), London: […] W[illiam] W[hite] for Cut[h]bert Burby, published 1598, →OCLC; republished as Shakspere’s Loves Labours Lost (Shakspere-Quarto Facsimiles; no. 5), London: W[illiam] Griggs, […], [1880], →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:

     There did I ſee that low ſpirited Swaine […] which as I remember, hight Coſtard […]

3. (archaic, dialectal) To command; to enjoin.
   • 1872, John Stuart Blackie, Lays of the Highlands and Islands‎^[3]:

     Malaise priest of Innishmurry / Hights me go, and I obey.

• The word survives only in literary and dialectal use. It chiefly occurs in the past tense.

hight (not comparable)

1. (archaic) Called, named.

   Synonym: yclept

   • 1885–1888, Richard F[rancis] Burton, transl. and editor, “Night 514”, in Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night […], Shammar edition, volume (please specify the volume), [London]: […] Burton Club […], →OCLC:

     […] there dwelt in a city of the cities of China a man which was a tailor, withal a pauper, and he had one son, Alaeddin hight.

See height

hight (plural hights)

1. Obsolete form of height.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     High thron'd above all hights

• thigh

• huht, hihht, hihte, hiȝte, hiht

From Old English hyht.

• IPA^(key): /hixt/
• Rhymes: -ixt

hight

1. hopefulness, expectedness
2. gladness, satisfaction

• English: hight (obsolete)

• “hight, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 24 May 2018.