wit1

[wit] /wɪt/
noun
1.
the keen perception and cleverly apt expression of those connections between ideas that awaken amusement and pleasure.
Synonyms: drollery, facetiousness, waggishness, repartee.
2.
speech or writing showing such perception and expression.
Synonyms: banter, joking, witticism, quip, raillery, badinage, persiflage; bon mot.
3.
a person having or noted for such perception and expression.
Synonyms: wag, jester, epigrammatist, satirist.
4.
understanding, intelligence, or sagacity; astuteness.
Synonyms: wisdom, sense, mind.
5.
Usually, wits.
  1. powers of intelligent observation, keen perception, ingenious contrivance, or the like; mental acuity, composure, and resourcefulness:
    using one's wits to get ahead.
    Synonyms: cleverness, cunning, wisdom, insight, perspicacity, sacaciousness, acumen.
  2. mental faculties; senses:
    to lose one's wits; frightened out of one's wits.
    Synonyms: mind, sanity; brains, marbles.
Idioms
6.
at one's wit's end, at the end of one's ideas or mental resources; perplexed:
My two-year-old won't eat anything but pizza, and I'm at my wit's end.
7.
keep / have one's wits about one, to remain alert and observant; be prepared for or equal to anything:
to keep your wits about you in a crisis.
8.
live by one's wits, to provide for oneself by employing ingenuity or cunning; live precariously:
We traveled around the world, living by our wits.
Origin
before 900; Middle English, Old English: mind, thought; cognate with German Witz, Old Norse vit; akin to wit2
Synonym Study
Humor, wit refer to an ability to perceive and express a sense of the clever or amusing. Humor consists principally in the recognition and expression of incongruities or peculiarities present in a situation or character. It is frequently used to illustrate some fundamental absurdity in human nature or conduct, and is generally thought of as more kindly than wit: a genial and mellow type of humor; his biting wit. Wit is a purely intellectual manifestation of cleverness and quickness of apprehension in discovering analogies between things really unlike, and expressing them in brief, diverting, and often sharp observations or remarks.
Examples from the web for wits
  • Standing so quickly dizzied him but did not weaken his wits or dull his awareness of the movements around him.
  • Because they dismiss their intuitive side, it's obvious they're half-wits.
  • Especially if you lack the necessary wits and knowledge about basic things scientific.
  • What you feel is a seismic emotional jolt that sends the audience, as one, right out of its wits.
  • They will be ready and waiting, with their wits well honed.
  • And you need to keep your wits about you when you're in the dead of night and it's the driving snow, the wind is blowing.
  • The more complex the society an animal lives in, the more wits it needs to prosper.
  • He pits his wits against the elder generation which grudges leaving its comfortable position to unsure fellows.
  • Ask any diplomat why it's bad to be rude, and you will get a far better answer than my feeble wits can provide.
  • The fact that there are always smarter and prettier people out there who didn't please the ugly half-wits doing the hiring.
British Dictionary definitions for wits

wits

/wɪts/
plural noun
1.
(sometimes sing) the ability to reason and act, esp quickly (esp in the phrase have one's wits about one)
2.
(sometimes sing) right mind, sanity (esp in the phrase out of one's wits)
3.
at one's wits' end, at a loss to know how to proceed
4.
(obsolete) five wits, the five senses or mental faculties
5.
live by one's wits, to gain a livelihood by craftiness and cunning rather than by hard work

Wits

/wɪts/
noun
1.
(South African, informal) University of the Witwatersrand

wit1

/wɪt/
noun
1.
the talent or quality of using unexpected associations between contrasting or disparate words or ideas to make a clever humorous effect
2.
speech or writing showing this quality
3.
a person possessing, showing, or noted for such an ability, esp in repartee
4.
practical intelligence (esp in the phrase have the wit to)
5.
(Scot & Northern English, dialect) information or knowledge (esp in the phrase get wit of)
6.
(archaic) mental capacity or a person possessing it
7.
(obsolete) the mind or memory
See also wits
Word Origin
Old English witt; related to Old Saxon giwitt, Old High German wizzi (German Witz), Old Norse vit, Gothic witi. See wit²

wit2

/wɪt/
verb
1.
(archaic) to be or become aware of (something)
adverb
2.
to wit, that is to say; namely (used to introduce statements, as in legal documents)
Word Origin
Old English witan; related to Old High German wizzan (German wissen), Old Norse vita, Latin vidēre to see
Word Origin and History for wits

wit

n.

"mental capacity," Old English wit, more commonly gewit, from Proto-Germanic *witjan (cf. Old Saxon wit, Old Norse vit, Danish vid, Swedish vett, Old Frisian wit, Old High German wizzi "knowledge, understanding, intelligence, mind," German Witz "wit, witticism, joke," Gothic unwiti "ignorance"), from PIE *woid-/*weid-/*wid- "to see," metaphorically "to know" (see vision). Related to Old English witan "to know" (source of wit (v.)). Meaning "ability to make clever remarks in an amusing way" is first recorded 1540s; that of "person of wit or learning" is from late 15c. For nuances of usage, see humor.

A witty saying proves nothing. [Voltaire, Diner du Comte de Boulainvilliers]


Wit ought to be five or six degrees above the ideas that form the intelligence of an audience. [Stendhal, "Life of Henry Brulard"]

v.

"know," Old English witan "to know," from Proto-Germanic *witanan "to have seen," hence "to know" (cf. Old Saxon witan, Old Norse vita, Old Frisian wita, Middle Dutch, Dutch weten, Old High German wizzan, German wissen, Gothic witan "to know"); see wit (n.). The phrase to wit, almost the only surviving use of the verb, is first recorded 1570s, from earlier that is to wit (mid-14c.), probably a loan-translation of Anglo-French cestasavoir, used to render Latin videlicet (see viz.).

Slang definitions & phrases for wits

wit

Related Terms

nitwit


Related Abbreviations for wits

WIT

witness (shortwave transmission)
Idioms and Phrases with wits

wit

see:
Encyclopedia Article for wits

wit

communication in which the stimulus produces amusement

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