Link Centre Dictionary

wit

UK/wɪt/ US/wɪt/ fairly common

noun

1.
2.
3.

a witty amusing person who makes jokes

Synonyms

Origin

From Middle English wit, witt, wyt, from Old English witt (“mind, sanity, sense, understanding”), from Proto-West Germanic *witi, from Proto-Germanic *witją (“knowledge; reason; wit”), from Proto-Germanic *witaną (“to know”), from Proto-Indo-European *wóyde (“to know”), from *weyd- (“to see”).

Phrases

  • brevity is the soul of wit
  • collect one's wits
  • gather one's wits
  • have one’s wits about one
  • mother wit
  • native wit
  • scare out of one’s wits
  • staircase wit

Related words

Broader terms

Narrower terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.