ANGLO-SAXON ROOTS. 409 
A third root which we will now bring under 
our consideration is ‘ witan,’ ‘wot,’ ‘ wiste,” 
to know; the action of the wit or intellectual 
faculties, or of the ‘wits,’ bodily senses, or 
perceptions. The simple literal meaning of this 
word is still retained in the language, as for 
instance in the infinitive “to wit.” ‘ Jeroboam 
the son of Nebat, caused Israel to sin, and Jehu 
departed not from them, to wit, the golden 
calves that were in Beth-el, and that were in 
Dan.” (2 Kings x chap. 29 ver.) Also in the 
imperfect, as “I wot that through ignorance ye 
did it, as did also your fathers,” &c. We like- 
wise frequently hear such expressions as these, 
“ Such a person has lost his wits.” Others have 
not their “ wits about them,” &c., which, though 
not deemed very elegant phrases, are, notwith- 
standing genuine English; and equivalent to 
saying, a person has lost his “senses.” For 
‘wits’ in Anglo-Saxon are synonymous with the 
Latin “sensus,” the origin of our modern word 
“‘senses,” which we have received through the 
medium of the Norman French. 
We retain in use the abstract, or noun from 
this root, but we seem to have quite perverted 
its meaning. ‘ Wit” now-a-days is a word used 
