DictionaryAI

wit

WIT/wɪt/

Pluralwits (some meanings)

7 meanings of wit

Practice

  1. 1
    clever humornoununcountable
    Humor, particularly the kind that shows cleverness or quickness of mind.

    The screenplay's wit kept the audience laughing without a single cheap gag.

    She deflected the reporter's question with characteristic wit.

    UsageOften a sharp, dry or quick wit; with wit describes how something is said.

    Similarhumor, repartee, banter, drollery

    Note

    Humor that works through the mind rather than through situation or slapstick. A character in the 1996 Simpsons episode "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield" defines it neatly as an incisive observation humorously phrased and delivered with impeccable timing. It attracts words of sparkle: The American novelist Winston Churchill's The Celebrity (1897) has a dining table full of scintillating wit.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

    • The Simpsons episode "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield" aired in 1996. en.wikipedia.org
    • A character gives the stated description of wit; the speaker is Evelyn Peters. en.wiktionary.org
    • Winston Churchill was an American novelist. en.wikipedia.org
  2. 2
    quick thinkingnouncountable or uncountable
    The ability to think and reason well, especially quickly; intelligence or good sense, often in the plural.

    When the boat began taking on water, the captain kept her wits about her and calmly handed out life jackets.

    Street vendors survive on wit, reading each customer in seconds.

    UsageCommon in keep your wits about you, at your wits' end, and have the wit to + verb.

    Similarintelligence, sense, cleverness

  3. 3
    sanitynounplural
    Sanity; soundness of mind.

    Months alone at the lighthouse nearly cost the keeper his wits.

    Frightened out of her wits, she could not recall her own address.

    UsageMostly in out of your wits: scared out of her wits.

    Similarsanity, reason, mind

    Oppositemadness, insanity

    Note

    Old English witt meant understanding, sense and even conscience, and here the word keeps that idea of a mind in working order.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

    • English wit derives from Old English witt, whose meanings included understanding, sense and conscience. en.wikipedia.org
  4. 4
    funny personnouncountable
    A person who tells funny anecdotes or makes clever, amusing remarks.

    Oscar Wilde was celebrated as the sharpest wit of his generation.

    In his small town my grandfather was known as a wit, and people still repeat his one-liners at the barbershop.

    UsageUsually a wit or quite a wit: the wit of the family.

    Similarhumorist, wag, joker, comedian, comic

    Note

    The label has not always been praise. In Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726), Gulliver lists Wits alongside backbiters, buffoons and politicians among the people he was glad to be free of in the land of the Houyhnhnms.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

    • The passage lists wits alongside backbiters, buffoons and politicians as absent. en.wiktionary.org
  5. 5
    with (speech)prepositiondialectalUSpronunciation spelling
    Pronunciation spelling of with: the preposition as some American speakers say it, with a plain t in place of the final th.

    "Stay wit me, kid," the old trainer muttered between rounds.

    Leaning over the counter, the cook asked, "You want that wit onions or plain?"

    Note

    Nothing to do with humor: this is simply with, spelled the way some American speakers say it, notably in Philadelphia and New York, with the final th sound replaced by a plain t. Writers use it in dialogue to put an accent on the page, as in stay wit me.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

    • This wit derives from with, independently of wit meaning clever humor. en.wiktionary.org
    • Philadelphia speech includes replacement of th sounds with t and d. en.wikipedia.org
    • New York speech can replace the final th of with with t. en.wikipedia.org

Less common meanings

  1. 6
    verbarchaictransitive or intransitive
    To know or be aware of something; without a direct object, it takes of.
    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.
    1849, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, St. Luke the Painter
    They are meddling in matters that men should not wit of.

    UsageSurvives in to wit, meaning namely.

    Note

    The old verb of knowing, from Old English witan, and as irregular as its age suggests: I wot, I wist, thou wottest, thou wistest. It now survives only in to wit, meaning "namely", which introduces a list or clarification: two witnesses, to wit, the porter and the cook. Malory still writes wit ye well in Le Morte d'Arthur, printed in 1485, and the King James Bible of 1611 uses it as a living verb.

    Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 7 facts

    • The verb wit descends from Old English witan. en.wiktionary.org
    • Wot, wist, wottest and wistest are historical inflections of wit. en.wiktionary.org
    • To wit means namely and introduces a specification or clarification. en.wiktionary.org
    • Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur contains the wording wit ye well, including in narration. gutenberg.org
    • Le Morte d'Arthur was first published in 1485. celm.folger.edu
    • The King James Bible's first edition dates to 1611, as its title page states. en.wikisource.org
    • The King James Bible uses wit as a verb meaning know. en.wikisource.org
  2. 7
    nounobsoleteplural
    The senses; the bodily faculties of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.
    Note

    An obsolete use, normally plural and usually counted, as in the old formula the five wits. The practical risk is misreading older texts: there, a person's five wits are usually the channels of perception, not jokes and not the power of reasoning, though some writers also counted five inward wits, such as memory and imagination.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

    • Wit historically meant a faculty of bodily perception, a sense that became obsolete. en.wikipedia.org
    • The sensory meaning normally occurs in the plural. en.wiktionary.org

More uses

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of wit apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origins

Meanings 1–4, 7

Old English witt ("understanding, intellect, sense, knowledge") became Middle English wit. It goes back through Proto-Germanic *witją ("knowledge, reason") to *weyd- ("see, know"), a Proto-Indo-European root. German Witz ("joke, wit") and Sanskrit vidyā ("knowledge") are relatives. Compare also English wise.

Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 7 facts

Meaning 6

From Middle English witen, from Old English witan ("to know"), from Proto-Germanic *witaną, from the Proto-Indo-European root *weyd- ("see, know"). It is related to German wissen ("to know") and Latin videō ("I see"); compare guide.

Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 7 facts

Meaning 5

From with.