wit1
/wɪt
/noun [mass noun]
1 (also wits) The capacity for inventive thought and quick understanding; keen intelligence: she does not lack perception or native wit he needed all his wits to figure out the way back...
- However, their quick wits and intelligence often brings them through, and they may make a fortune from nothing.
- Effectively using their wits and their wit for political advocacy, they wrote, directed, acted, or did voiceovers.
- If not for my quick wits, she would probably be reading me Old Mother Hubbard by now.
Synonyms
intelligence, shrewdness, astuteness, cleverness, canniness, acuteness, acuity, sharpness, sharp-wittedness, sense, good sense, common sense, wisdom, sagacity, judgement, understanding, acumen, discernment, perception, insight, percipience, perspicacity;
brains, mind
informal nous, gumption, horse sense
British informal common
North American informal savvy, smarts
1.1 [with infinitive] Good sense: I had the wit to realize that the only way out was up
2A natural aptitude for using words and ideas in a quick and inventive way to create humour: his caustic wit cuts through the humbug...
- His acid wit and quick humour have made him a television star, but this summer Clive Anderson will return to his roots when he appears at the Edinburgh Fringe venue which helped launch his career.
- Popular presenter Sue Sweeney brings her quick wit and comic humour to a new show on Saturdays starting at 9.00 am following the success of her Tuesday evening programme.
- But equal to this was his quick wit and indomitable humour.
Synonyms
wittiness, humour, funniness, facetiousness, drollery, waggishness;
repartee, badinage, banter, wordplay, raillery, jokes, witticisms, quips, puns
2.1 [count noun] A witty person: she is such a wit...
- Hanahoe is a great wit and began the banter that day when congratulating Kerry on their 5-11 to 0-9 win.
- As a feminist wit quipped in this regard, ‘Ginger did everything Fred did except backwards and in high heels!’
- The wits who complained that it would clash with the home side's tangerine shirts had forgotten that the previous one came in the colours of Ayr.
Synonyms
wag, comedian, humorist, funny person, comic, joker, jokester;
French farceur
informal character
informal, dated card, caution
rare punster
Phrases
be at one's wits' end
be frightened (or scared) out of one's wits
gather (or collect) one's wits
have (or keep) one's wits about one
live by one's wits
pit one's wits against
Derivatives
witted
[in combination]: slow-witted
Origin
Old English wit(t), gewit(t), denoting the mind as the seat of consciousness, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch weet and German Witz, also to wit2.
see history, wise
Rhymes
wit2
/wɪt/verb (wot /wɒt/, witting; past and past participle wist /wɪst/) [no object]
1 archaic Have knowledge: I addressed a few words to the lady you wot of...
- With the two tables of testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him.
- And when He returned, He found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy, neither wist they what to answer Him.
- And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was.
2 (to wit) That is to say (used to be more specific about something already referred to): the textbooks show an irritating parochialism, to wit an almost total exclusion of papers not in English...
- Given that the map on the right clearly says ‘Baghdad’ in the middle, I assume you're using that staple of British wit, to wit, ‘irony.’
- I haven't time to answer him now, but I was interested in something one of his commenters said: to wit, that Social Security was put in place to replace the retirement savings of people who were wiped out in the 1929 crash.
- The incursion of sectarian orthodoxy in Indian history involves two distinct problems, to wit, narrow sectarianism, and unreasoned orthodoxy.
Origin
Old English witan, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch weten and German wissen, from an Indo-European root shared by Sanskrit veda 'knowledge' and Latin videre 'see'.