| 释义 |
mother wit
Also 5 moderis wytte.
Native or natural wit; common sense.
Often in Proverb: see clergy 5.
c1440J. Capgrave Life St. Kath. v. 1710 Thei cowde neuere resorte on-to her moderis wytte. 1529More Dyaloge i. Wks. 153/2 One speciall thynge, without which all lernynge is halfe lame. What is that quod he. Mary quod I, a good mother wyt. 1596Spenser F.Q. iv. x. 21 For all that nature by her mother-wit Could frame in earth,..Was there. 1697J. Sergeant Solid Philos. 428 Such Forms of Reasoning were, certainly, never intended..for Men of good Mother-Wits. 1760C. Johnston Chrysal (1822) I. 263 Well supplied with what is called mother-wit. 1860Emerson Cond. Life vi. (1861) 125 The cure for false theology is motherwit. 1885J. Martineau Types Eth. Theory I. 49 The domain of accidental judgment and mother-wit.
†b. ? One who possesses mother wit. Obs.
1586Marlowe 1st Pt. Tamburl. Prol. 1 From iygging vaines of riming mother wits.
Hence mother witted a., having mother-wit.
1593Nashe Christ's T. 67 Discontent,..if [it light] on a man of puissance, (be he not more then mother-witted circumspect,) to him and his family it is no lesse fatall. |