wit

• enPR: wĭt, IPA^(key): /wɪt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪt
• Homophone: whit (wine–whine merger)

From Middle English wit, from Old English witt (“understanding, intellect, sense, knowledge, consciousness, conscience”), from Proto-West Germanic *witi, from Proto-Germanic *witją (“knowledge, reason”), from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“see, know”).

Cognate with Dutch weet, German Witz, Danish vid, Swedish vett, Norwegian Bokmål vett, Gothic 𐌿𐌽𐍅𐌹𐍄𐌹 (unwiti, “ignorance”), Latin vīdī (“see (pf.)”), Bulgarian вям (vjam), Russian ве́дать (védatʹ), Sanskrit विद्या (vidyā). Compare wise.

wit (countable and uncountable, plural wits)

1. (now usually in the plural) Sanity.

   He's gone completely out of his wits.

2. (obsolete, usually in the plural) The senses.
3. Intellectual ability; faculty of thinking, reasoning.

   Where she has gone to is beyond the wit of man to say.

4. The ability to think quickly; mental cleverness, especially under short time constraints.

   My father had a quick wit and a steady hand.

5. Intelligence; common sense.

   The opportunity was right in front of you, and you didn't even have the wit to take it!

   • 15th c., “[The Creation]”, in Wakefield Mystery Plays; Re-edited in George England, Alfred W. Pollard, editors, The Towneley Plays (Early English Text Society Extra Series; LXXI), London: […] Oxford University Press, 1897, →OCLC, page 6, lines 174–179:

     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.

     I give thee consciousness, I give thee strength over all thou seest, over all its breadth and length thou shalt be wondrously wise. Mirth and joy [you shall] have at will to fulfil all thy liking and dwell in paradise.

   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene ii:

     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.

   • 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 23”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:

     O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:
     To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.

6. Humour, especially when clever or quick.

   The best man's speech was hilarious, full of wit and charm.

   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVIII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 152:

     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.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     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.

   • 1996 February 4, Jennifer Crittenden, “Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield”, in The Simpsons, season 7, episode 14, production code 3F13:

     Evelyn Peters: "Don't worry, Marge. Her idea of wit is nothing more than an incisive observation humorously phrased and delivered with impeccable timing".

   • 1991 September, Stephen Fry, chapter 1, in The Liar, London: Heinemann, →ISBN, section III, page 26:

     […] the cemetery – which people of shattering wit like Sampson never tired of calling ‘the dead centre of town’ […]

7. A person who tells funny anecdotes or jokes; someone witty.

   Your friend is quite a wit, isn't he?

   • 1601, Ben Jonson, Poetaster or The Arraignment: […], London: […] [R. Bradock] for M[atthew] L[ownes] […], published 1602, →OCLC, Act III:

     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: […]

   • 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author’s Oeconomy and Happy Life among the Houyhnhnms. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part IV (A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms), page 301:

     […] 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; […]

• (intellectual ability): See also Thesaurus:intelligence
• repartee

(type of humor):

• acid
• biting
• cutting
• lambent

From Middle English witen, from Old English witan, from Proto-West Germanic *witan, from Proto-Germanic *witaną, from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“see, know”).

Cognate with Icelandic vita, Dutch weten, German wissen, Danish vide, Swedish veta, and Latin videō (“I see”). Compare guide.

wit (see below for this verb’s conjugation)

2. (ambitransitive, obsolete except in to wit) To know, be aware of (constructed 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.

   • 1483, Thomas Malory, Le morte d'Arthur:

     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.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 2:3–4:

     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.

   • 1849, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, St. Luke the Painter, lines 5–8:

     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.

• The verb remains in use only in the infinitive form in the fixed expression to wit.
• 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.

• bewit
• to wit
• unwitting
• witness

From with.

• (Southern US) (before consonants) IPA^(key): /wɪt/, (before yod) /wɪtʃ/

wit

1. (Southern US) Pronunciation spelling of with.

• wit woo

• Twi, TWI, WTI, ITW, twi-, Tiw

From Dutch wit, from Middle Dutch wit, from Old Dutch *wit, from Proto-Germanic *hwittaz.

• IPA^(key): /vət/

• Audio:

  (file)

wit (attributive wit, comparative witter, superlative witste)

1. white (colour)

   Antonym: swart

2. white, White (classification of people)

   Synonym: blank

   Coordinate terms: bruin, swart

Borrowed from Old Javanese wwit, wwīt, wit (“origin, cause; base, foundation; stem, tree”).

• IPA^(key): /wit/

wit (Balinese script ᬯᬶᬢ᭄)

1. tree

   Wénten wit poh akéh ring Nagara. ― There are many mango trees in Nagara.

2. origin

• “wit” in Balinese–Indonesian Dictionary [Kamus Bahasa Bali–Indonesia], Denpasar, Indonesia: The Linguistic Center of Bali Province [Balai Bahasa Provinsi Bali].

wit

1. alternative form of wid

• Crosbie, Paul, ed. (2007), Kriol-Inglish Dikshineri: English-Kriol Dictionary. Belize City: Belize Kriol Project, p. 374.

• IPA^(key): /ʋɪt/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: wit
• Rhymes: -ɪt

From Middle Dutch wit, from Old Dutch *wit, from Proto-West Germanic *hwīt, from Proto-Germanic *hwittaz. The geminate is unexpected as the usual Proto-Germanic form is *hwītaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱweytos (“shine; bright”).

The geminate is sometimes explained as being the result of Kluge's law, thus from a pre-Germanic *kweyd-nos.

wit (comparative witter, superlative witst)

1. white

   De muur is wit. ― The wall is white.

   Ze droeg een witte jurk tijdens het feest. ― She wore a white dress at the party.

   Zijn tanden zijn witter dan die van haar. ― His teeth are whiter than hers.

2. (of income) legally obtained by having paid the appropriate taxes

   Zijn inkomen is volledig wit. ― His income is fully legal and taxed.

   Veel mensen streven ernaar om een wit inkomen te hebben. ― Many people aim to have a white, or legally obtained income.

3. (chiefly Suriname) having a white skin colour, light-skinned (see usage note)

   Synonym: blank

4. (Suriname) having a relatively light skin colour
5. (archaic) clear-lighted, not dark at all

   De lang gewenste dag verscheen, heel klaar en wit. ― The long-wished-for day appeared, very clear and white.

• Since the 2010s, wit has come to be increasingly used in continental Dutch among youth and others (associated with social justice movements) as a more neutral alternative to the most commonly used blank, which is argued to be tainted by the colonial era (see Afrikaans blank) and have a connotation of "cleanliness" and "purity" that wit does not have. See Blank en wit in het racismedebat on nlwiki.

Declension of wit
uninflected	wit
inflected	witte
comparative	witter
		positive	comparative	superlative
predicative/adverbial		wit	witter	het witst het witste
indefinite	m./f. sing.	witte	wittere	witste
	n. sing.	wit	witter	witste
	plural	witte	wittere	witste
definite		witte	wittere	witste
partitive		wits	witters	—

• zwart

• wijting

wit n (plural witten, diminutive witje n)

1. (uncountable) white (color)

   Wit is alle kleuren ineens.

   White is all colors at once.

2. (archaic) (short for doelwit (“goal, target, the white in a bullseye”))

   Myn wit is Adam en zyn afkomst te bederven. (in Lucifer, by Vondel)

   My goal is to corrupt Adam and his origin.

3. (slang) cocaine

   Heb je een halfje wit?

   Do you have a dose of cocaine? (The phrase halfje wit normally means "half a loaf of white bread".)

   • 2011, Esther Schenk, Straatwaarde, Luitingh-Sijthoff B.V., →ISBN:

     Op de Baan verschijnen dealers die gekookte coke aanbieden. Dat is het ei van Columbus. Nu hoef ik niet meer met mijn wit eerst naar huis om het te gaan koken.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 2014, Helen Vreeswijk, Overdosis, Unieboek | Het Spectrum, →ISBN:

     ‘Je bestelde ook een halfje wit’, hield De Main hem voor. ‘Wat is dat dan?’

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

• eiwit

• Afrikaans: wit
• Berbice Creole Dutch: wete
• Jersey Dutch: wät
• Negerhollands: wit, wet
• → Aukan: weti
• → Saramaccan: wéti

wit

1. inflection of witten:
   1. first/second/third-person singular present indicative
   2. imperative

Colors in Dutch · kleuren (layout · text)

wit	grijs	zwart
rood; karmijnrood	oranje; bruin	geel; roomwit
groengeel/limoengroen	groen
blauwgroen/cyaan; groenblauw/petrolblauw	azuurblauw	blauw
violet; indigo	magenta; paars	roze

From Middle Dutch wit, from Old Dutch *witti, from Proto-West Germanic *witi, from Proto-Germanic *witją (“knowledge, reason”), from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“see, know”).

Related to weten (“to know”), wis (“knowledge”) and wijs (“wise”). Cognate with English wit, German Witz.

wit n (plural witten, diminutive witje n)

1. (archaic) ability to think and reason
2. (archaic) knowledge

• wittig, wittigen, wittiger, verwittigen

• Twi

wit

1. romanization of 𐍅𐌹𐍄

wit

1. romanization of ꦮꦶꦠ꧀

Louisiana Creole cardinal numbers

<  7	8	9  >
Cardinal : wit     Ordinal : wityèmm

Inherited from French huit (“eight”).

• IPA^(key): /wit/
• Rhymes: -it

wit

1. eight

Mauritian Creole cardinal numbers

<  7	8	9  >
Cardinal : wit     Ordinal : witiem

From French huit.

wit

1. eight

From Old Dutch *wit, from Proto-Germanic *hwittaz. The long-vowel variant wijt is from Old Dutch wīt, from Proto-West Germanic *hwīt, from Proto-Germanic *hwītaz.

wit

1. white
2. clean
3. pale (of skin)

• wijt

• Dutch: wit
• Limburgish: wiet

• “wit”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000
• Verwijs, E., Verdam, J. (1885–1929) “wit (I)”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, →ISBN, page I

• IPA^(key): /wit/

From Old English witt, from Proto-West Germanic *witi, from Proto-Germanic *witją.

• witt, witte, wytt, wyt

• IPA^(key): /wit/

wit (plural wittes)

1. mind, sanity

• English: wit
• Yola: wut

• “wit, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

From Old English wit (“we two”), from Proto-West Germanic *wit, from Proto-Germanic *wet. Compare the first-person plural pronoun we.

• wyt, witt

wit (accusative unk, genitive unker, possessive determiner unker)

1. (Early Middle English) First-person dual pronoun: we twain, the two of us.

• “wit, pron.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 11 May 2018.

From English with.

wit

1. with
   • 2025 February 4, “Bianca Censori Grammys dress and oda looks from events wey make pipo open mouth”, in BBC News Pidgin:

     Jennifer Lopez bin dey nominated for di 2000 Grammy Awards wia she cause kasala wit di dress wey she wear wey get big slit for front.

     Jennifer Lopez was nominated for the 2000 Grammy Awards where she caused trouble with the dress she wore that had a big slit in front.

• witj (Föhr-Amrum)

From Old Frisian hwīt, from Proto-West Germanic *hwīt, from Proto-Germanic *hwītaz. Cognates include West Frisian wyt.

• (Sylt) IPA^(key): [vɪt]

wit

1. (Mooring, Sylt) white

• wit

From Proto-West Germanic *hwīt, from Proto-Germanic *hwītaz.

wīt

1. white

• Middle Dutch: wit, wijt
  • Dutch: wit
  • Limburgish: wiet

• “wīt”, in Oudnederlands Woordenboek, 2012

• wyt

From Proto-West Germanic *wit, from Proto-Germanic *wet, from a suffixed form of *wéy (see wē). Cognate with North Frisian wat, Old Norse vit, Gothic 𐍅𐌹𐍄 (wit), and Lithuanian vèdu.

• IPA^(key): /wit/

wit

1. we two

   Wit beǣwnodon ġiestrandæġ.

   We wed yesterday.

   • c. 700 AD, Bēowulf, ll. 1476:

     goldwine gumena, ⁠hwæt wit geō sprǣcon,

     gold-friend of men who we already spoke

• Middle English: wit

Spelling variant of uit

wit

1. eight

From Proto-Germanic *wīdaz, whence also Old Saxon wīt, Old English wīd and Old Norse víðr.

wīt

1. wide

• Middle High German: wīt
  • Central Franconian: weck, wick, wiet, weit
    • Luxembourgish: wäit (“far”), weit (“wide”)
  • German: weit
  • Yiddish: ווײַט (vayt)

• IPA^(key): /wit/

From Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *bit

wit

1. base
2. origin
3. beginning

wit

1. to arise

Probably from Proto-Mon-Khmer *rwiʔ (“fig tree”). (This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

wit

1. tree
2. stem
3. base, foundation
4. origin, cause

• wwit
• wwīt

• Javanese: ꦮꦶꦠ꧀ (wit)
• → Balinese: ᬯᬶᬢ᭄ (wit)

Probably related to Temiar wek (“to go, to leave, to depart”). Compare Indonesian pamit (“to ask for leaving”). (This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

wit

1. to leave

• wwit

• "wit" in P.J. Zoetmulder with the collaboration of S.O. Robson, Old Javanese-English Dictionary. 's-Gravenhage: M. Nijhoff, 1982.

From Proto-West Germanic *wit, from Proto-Germanic *wet. Accusative from Proto-Germanic *unk, dative from *unkiz.

wit

1. we two; nominative dual of ik

From wis, a play on was.

• (Standard Tagalog) IPA^(key): /ˈwit/ [ˈwɪt̪̚]
• Rhymes: -it
• Syllabification: wit

wit (Baybayin spelling ᜏᜒᜆ᜔) (gay slang)

1. alternative form of was

From English wheat.

wit

1. wheat