WIT
WordNet
noun
(1) Mental ability
"He's got plenty of brains but no common sense"
(2) A message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter
(3) A witty amusing person who makes jokes
WiktionaryText
Etymology 1
From , from from . Cognate with Danish , Dutch , Gothic , Old High German ( or ) (German ), Latin , Old Norse and Swedish . Compare .
Noun
- Sanity.
- He's gone completely out of his wits?
- 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 wittiness.
- 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!
- Spoken humour, especially when clever or quick.
- The best man's speech was hilarious, full of wit and charm.
- A person who tells funny anecdotes or jokes; someone witty.
- Your friend is quite a wit, isn't he?
Etymology 2
From , from , from . Cognate with Dutch , German , Swedish , and Latin . Compare .
Verb
- Know, be aware of .
- 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 5–8
- 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.
Conjugation
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Usage notes
- As a preterite-present verb, the third-person singular indicative form is not but ; the plural indicative forms conform to the infinitive: , , .