wit 
(see wite^'j Teut. ■/ witj see, = OBulg. vidieti 
= Serv. vidjeti = Bohem. icideti = Russ. i^idieti, 
see, = L. videre, see, = Gr. 'tSeiv^ see (perf . ol6a, 
I know, = E. tcot), = Skt. -)/ vid, see, perceive. 
From the verb wiO- are ult. E. icit^, n., wiPj 
wisely wise^ (guise, disguise), wise^, wiss, wisdom, 
etc., witch, wick^j wicked, wiseacre, iwis, wis^, 
wis^, witness, witter, witterly, wizard, etc. (see 
also wite'^, wite^) ; from the L. videre are ult. 
E. msage, vision, visit, visual, etc, (see under 
vision); from the Gr., idea, idol, idolon, eidolon, 
etc., and the element -eid- in kaleidoscope, -id 
in the termination -oid, etc.] To know; be or 
become aware: used with or without an ob- 
ject, the object when present often being a 
clause or statement, (a) Present tense : I wot (wote), 
thou wost (erroneously wottest, wotst), he wot (erroneously 
tootteth); plural we, ye (you), they tvit. [Archaic.} 
But natheles, ylt wot I wel also 
That ther nis noon dwelling in this contree, 
That either hath in heven or helle ybe, 
Ne may of it non other weyes witen. 
But as he hath herd seyd or founde it writen. 
Chaucer, Good Women, 1. 7. 
Thai seyn to hir Womman, what wepist thou? She 
seid to hem, For thei han takun a wey my lord, and I woot 
not where thei have putt hira. Wyclif, John xx. 13. 
Dead long ygoe, I wote, thou haddest bin. 
Spenser, F. Q., I. ii. 18. 
Wottest thou what I say, man? 
The World and the Child (O. E. Plays, I. 264). 
But he refused, and said unto his master's wife, Behold, 
my master xvotteth not what is with me in the house. 
Gen. XXX ix. 8. 
I wot well where he is. Shak., R. and J., iii. 2. 139. 
Nay, nay, God wot, so thou wert nobly born, 
Thou hast a pleasant presence. 
Tennyson, Gareth and Lynette. 
(ft) Preterit tense : I, etc., wist (erroneously wotted), [Ar- 
chaic] 
Whanne she hadde seid thes thingis, she was turnyd a 
bale, and syg Jhesu stondinge, and wiste not for it was 
Jhesu. Wydif, John xx. 14. 
I whych woted best 
His wretched dryftes. 
SackvUle, Complaint of Henry, Duke of Buckingham. 
He stood still, and wotted not what to do. 
Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress, i. 
(c) Infinitive: wit (to wit); hence, to do to wit, to cause 
(one) to know. 
For thoughethou see me hidouse and horrible to loken 
oime, I do the to wytene that it is made be Enchaunte- 
ment. MandevUte, Travels, p. 25. 
And first it is to wyt that the Holy Londe, which was 
delyuered to the .xij. tribes of Israeli, in parte it was called 
ye kyngdome of Jude. 
Sir R. Guylforde, Pylgrymage, p. 47. 
What wit haue we (poore fooles) to wit what wil serue 
vs? 
Sir T. More, Cumfort against Tribulation (1673), fol. 14. 
And his sister stood afar off to imt what would be done 
to him. Ex. ii. 4. 
Moreover, brethren, we do you to tvit of the grace of 
God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia. 
2 Cor. viii. 1. 
Now please you xvit 
The epitaph is for Marina writ. 
Shak., Pericles, iv. 4. 31. 
[The phrase to wit is now used chiefly to call attention to 
some particular, or as introductory to a detailed state- 
ment of what has been just before mentioned generally, 
and is equivalent to 'namely,' 'that is to say'; as, there 
were three present— io wit, Mr. Brown, Mr. Green, and 
Mr. Black. 
lus Ciuile was the order and manner in old dayes to 
forme their plees in lawe, that is to vritt to cite, aunawere, 
accuse, proue, denie, alledge, relate, to giue sentence, and 
to execute. Guevara, Letters (tr. by Hellowes, 1577X V- 16. 
That which Moses saith, God built a woman, The Tal- 
mud interpreteth. He made curies, and he brought her to 
Adam, to vxit with leaping and dancing. 
Purchas, Pilgrimage, p. 214.] 
(d) Present participle : witting, sometimes weeting (er- 
roneously wotting). Compare univitting. 
Yet are these feet . . . 
Swift-winged with desire to get a grave. 
As wittiyig I no other comfort have. 
Shak., 1 Hen. VI.,ii. 5. 16. 
(e) Past participle : wist. (Obsolete or archaic] 
For harmes myghten folwen mo than two 
If it were wist. Chaucer, Troilus, i. 615. 
The grey border-stone that is wist 
To dilate and assume a wild shape in the mist. 
Mrs. Browning, Lay of the Brown Rosary. 
witl (wit), n. [< ME. toit, wyt (pi. wittes), < 
AS. wit, knowledge, = OS, ^wit in comp. fire- 
wit, curiosity, = OFries. wit =. MLG. wite, wete 
= OHG. wizzt, MHG. witze, G. witz, knowledge, 
understanding, wisdom, = Icel. vit = Sw. vett 
= Dan. vid, wit, knowledge; cf. Goth, un-wits, 
without understanding, foolish, un-witi, igno- 
rance, foolishness; from the verb.] 1. Know- 
ledge; wisdom; intelligence; sagacity; judg- 
ment; sense. 
6950 
'*It is but a Dido," quod this doctour, "a dysoures tale. 
Al the u*itt of this worlde and wiste mennes strengthe 
Can nougt confourmen a pees bytwene the pope and his 
enemys." Piers Plowman (B), xiii. 172. 
Many things here among us have been found by chance, 
which no wit could ever have devised. 
Sir T. More, Utopia (tr. by Robinson), i. 
Had I but had the wit yestreen 
That I hae coft the day — 
I'd paid my kane seven times to hell 
Ere you'd been won away ! 
The Young Tamlane (Child's Ballads, I. 125). 
I have the wU to think my master is a kind of a knave. 
Shak., T. G. of V., iii. 1.262. 
If a man is honest, it detracts nothing from his merits 
to say he had the wit to see that honesty is the best policy. 
E. Dicey, Victor Emmanuel, p. 112. 
2. Mind ; understanding ; intellect ; reason ; in 
the plural, the faculties or powers of the mind 
or intellect ; senses : as, to "be out of one's wits; 
he has all his wits about him. 
So my witte wex and wanyed til I a fole were. 
And somme lakked my lyf allowed it fewe. 
And leten me for a lorel. Piers Plovmiayi (B), xv. 3. 
Who knew the wit of the Lord, or who was his coun- 
ceilour ? Wyclif, Rom. xi. 34. 
Many yong wittes be driuen to hate leaminge before they 
know what learninge is. 
Ascham, The Scholemaster, p. 19. 
His unts are not so blunt. Shak., Much Ado, iiL 5. 11. 
I am in my ivits ; I am a labouring man. 
And we have seldom leisure to run mad. 
Fletcher and Rowley, Maid in the Mill, iii. 2. 
Sir John Russel also was taken there, but he, feigning 
himself to be out of his Wits, escaped for that Time. 
Baker, Chronicles, p. 150. 
Sf. Knowledge; information. 
The Child of Wynd got wit of it. 
Which filled his heart with woe. 
The Laidley Worm of Spindleston-heugh (Child's Ballads, 
[I. 283). 
Let neither my father nor mother get ujit, 
But that I'm coming hame. 
The Queen's Marie (Child's Ballads, III. 119). 
4. Ingenuity; skill. 
Your knyf withe alle your vrytte 
Vnto youre sylf bothe clene and sharpe conserve. 
That honestly yee raowe your own mete kerve. 
Babees Book (E. E. T. S.), p. 6. 
What strength cannot do, man's m< — being the most 
forcible engine — hath often effected. 
Raleigh (Arber's Eng. Garner, I. 16). 
5. Imagination ; the imaginative faculty. 
[Kare.] 
Wit in the poet ... is no other than the faculty of imagi- 
nation in the writer, which . . . searches over all the 
memory for the species or ideas of those things which it 
designs to represent. 
Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, Td Sir R. Howard. 
6. The keen perception and apt expression of 
those connections between ideas which awaken 
pleasure and especially amusement. See the 
quotations and the synonyms. 
True wit consists in the resemblance of ideas. . . . But 
every resemblance of ideas is not what we call wit, and it 
must be such an one that gives delight and surprise to the 
reader. Where the likeness is obvious, it creates no sur- 
prise, and is not imt. Thus, when a poet tells us that the 
bosom of his mistress is as white as snow, there is no tcit 
in the comparison ; but when he adds, with a sigh, it is as 
cold too, it then grows into tvit. Dryden. 
Wit lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting 
those together with quickness and variety wherein can be 
found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up 
pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy. 
Locke, Human Understanding, II. xi. 2. 
In wit, if by tvit be meant the power of perceiving anal- 
ogies between things which appear to have nothing in 
common, he never had an equal. Macaulay, Bacon. 
7t. Conceit; idea; thought; design; scheme; 
plan. 
To senden him into som fer contree 
Ther as this Jasoun may destroyed be ; 
This was his w%t. Chaucer, Good Women, 1. 1420. 
Was 't not a pretty wit of mine, master poet, to have had 
him rode into Puckeridge with a horn before him? 
Dekker and Webster, Northward Ho, v. 1. 
At one's Wit's end. See emf.— Kind witt. Seekijidi.— 
The five wits, the five senses ; in general, the faculties of 
the mind. The five wits have been fancifully enumerated 
as common wit, imagination, fantasy, estimation, memory. 
The deedly synnes that been entred into thyn herte by 
thy five wittes. Chaucer, Tale of Melibeus. 
If thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have done, for thou 
hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits than . . . 
I have in my whole^ce. Shak., R. and J., ii. 4. 77, 78. 
Alone and warming his^ye mts, 
The white owl in the belfry sits. 
Tennyson, The Owl. 
To drive to one's wit's end. See drive.— ^o have 
one's wits In a creel. See creel.— ^o live by one's 
wits, to live by temporary shifts or expedients, as one 
without regular means of living. 
Addison sent to beg Gay, who was then living by his 
wits about town, to come to Holland House. 
Macaulay, Addison. 
= SyTl. 6. Wit, Humor. In writers down to the time of 
Pope wit generally meant the serious kind of wU. 
wit 
Serious wil is . . . neither more nor less than quick 
wisdom. Burnet. 
Look, he 's winding up the watch of his wit ; by and by 
it will strike. Sfiok., Tempest, it 1. 13. 
In more recent use wU in the singular generally implies 
comic M-it ; in that sense it is different from Awmor. One 
principal difference is that vnt always lies in some form 
of words, while hum&r may be expressed by manner, as 
a smile, a grimace, an attitude. Underlying this is the 
fact, consistent with the original meaning of the words, 
that humor goes more deeply into the nature of the 
thought, while wit catches pleasing but occult or far- 
fetched resemblances between things really unlike : a 
good pun shows wU; Irving's ''History of New York" 
is a piece of sustained humor, the kmnor lying in the 
portrayal of character, the nature of the incidents, etc. 
Again, "iri( may, I think, be regarded as a purely in- 
tellectual process, while humor is a sense of the ridicu- 
lous controlled by feeling, and coexistent often with the 
gentlest and deepest pathos" (H. Reed, Lects. on Eng. 
Lit., II. 357). Hence humor is always kind, while uU may 
be unkind in the extreme: Swift's "Travels of Gulliver" is 
much too severe a satire to be called a work of humor. It 
is essential to the effect of wit that the form in which it is 
expressed should be brief ; humor may be heightened in 
its effect by expansion into full forms of statement, de- 
scription, etc. Wit more often than humor depends upon 
passing circumstances for its effect. 
The best and most agreeable specimen of English humor 
(it is humor in contrast to ivit) which belongs to that 
period is Steele's invention, and Addison's use, of the 
character of Sir Roger deCoverley. . . . The same species 
of pure, genial, wise, and healthful humor has been sus- 
tained in the incomparable "Vicar of Wakefield," and in 
the writings of our countryman Washington Irving. 
H. Reed, Lects. on Eng. Lit., II. 369. 
While ivit is a purely intellectual thing, into every act 
of the humorous mind there is an influx of the moral 
nature ; rays, direct or refracted, from the will and the 
affections, from the disposition and the temperament^ en- 
ter into all humor; and thence it is that humor is of a 
diffusive quality, pervading an entire course of thought ; 
while wit — because it has no existence apart from certain 
logical relations of thought which are definitely assign- 
able, and can be counted even — is always punctually con- 
centrated within the circle of a few words. De Quincey. 
Dr. Trusler says that wit relates to the matter, humour 
to the manner ; that our old comedies abounded with urit, 
and our old actors with humour ; that humour always ex- 
cites laughter but wit does not; that a fellow of humour 
will set a whole company in a roar, but that there is a 
smartness in uit which cuts while it pleases. Wit, he 
adds, always implies sense and abilities, while hummir 
does not ; humour is chiefly relished by the vulgar, but 
education is requisite to comprehend wit. 
Fleming, Vocab. FhiloB. 
It is no uncommon thing to hear "He has Aujnour rather 
than wit." Here the expression commonly means pleasan- 
try ; for whoever has humour h^s wit. although it does not 
follow that whoever has unt has humour. Humour is ivU 
appertaining to character, and indulges in breadth of 
drollery rather than in play and brilliancy of point Wit 
vibrates and spirts ; humour springs up exuberantly as 
from a fountain and runs on. In Congreve you wonder 
what he will say next ; in Addison you repose on what is 
said, listening with assured expectation of something con- 
genial and pertinent. Landor. 
Small room for Fancy's many chorded lyre, 
i'or Wit's bright rockets with their trains of fire. 
0. W. Hdmes, An After-Dinner Poem. 
I am not speaking of the fun of the book [Don Quixote], 
of which there is plenty, and sometimes boisterous enough, 
but of that deeper and more delicate quality, suggestive 
of remote analogies and essential incongruities, which 
alone deserves the name of humor. Loivm, Don Quixote. 
wit**^ (wit), n. [Prob. another use, and certain- 
ly now regarded as another use, of wit^y n. ; cf . 
spirit, a person of lively mind or energy, from 
spirit, liveliness, energy ; witness, a person who 
has knowledge, from witness, knowledge. But 
wit as applied to a person may in part repre- 
sent, as it may phonetically descend from, the 
ME. *wit, wet, witey weote, < AS. wita, weota, 
also gewita, a man of knowledge, an adviser, 
counselor, = OF. wita, a witness, = OHG. wizo, 
a witness; lit, * one who knows,' with formative 
a- (-an) of agent, < witaii, know: see wit^, v. 
This AS. wita appears in the historical term 
witenagemot, AS. witcyia gemdt,^wits^ moot, moot 
of counselors,' a council, parliament.] One who 
has discernment, reason, or judgment; a per- 
son of acute perception; especially, one who 
detects between associated ideas the finer re- 
semblances or contrasts which give pleasure 
or enjoyment to the mind, and who gives 
expression to these for the entertainment of 
others; often, a person who has a keen percep- 
tion of the incongruous or ludicrous, and uses 
it for the amusement and frequently at the ex- 
pense of others. 
By providing that choice wits after reasonable time 
spent in contemplation may at the length either enter 
into that holy vocation ... or else give place and suffer 
others to succeed in their rooms. 
Hooker, Eccles. Polity, v. 80. 
O, sure I am, the wits of former days 
To subjects worse have given admiring praise. 
Shak., Sonnets, lix. 
When I die, 
I'll build an almshouse for decayed mi^. 
Beau, and FL, Wit at Several Weapons, t. 2. 
