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wit
1[ wit ]
noun
- the keen perception and cleverly apt expression of those connections between ideas that awaken amusement and pleasure.
Synonyms: drollery
- speech or writing showing such perception and expression.
Synonyms: raillery, quip, witticism, banter, bon mot, persiflage, badinage, repartee
- a person having or noted for such perception and expression.
- understanding, intelligence, or sagacity.
- Usually wits.
- powers of intelligent observation, keen perception, ingenious contrivance, or the like; mental acuity, composure, and resourcefulness:
using one's wits to get ahead.
- mental faculties; senses:
to lose one's wits;
frightened out of one's wits.
wit
2[ wit ]
verb (used with or without object)
- Archaic. to know.
wit
1/ wɪt /
noun
- the talent or quality of using unexpected associations between contrasting or disparate words or ideas to make a clever humorous effect
- speech or writing showing this quality
- a person possessing, showing, or noted for such an ability, esp in repartee
- practical intelligence (esp in the phrase have the wit to )
- dialect.information or knowledge (esp in the phrase get wit of )
- archaic.mental capacity or a person possessing it
- obsolete.the mind or memory
wit
2/ wɪt /
verb
- archaic.to be or become aware of (something)
adverb
- to witthat is to say; namely (used to introduce statements, as in legal documents)
Word History and Origins
Word History and Origins
Origin of wit1
Origin of wit2
Idioms and Phrases
- 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.
- 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.
- to wit, that is to say; namely:
It was the time of the vernal equinox, to wit, the beginning of spring.
- 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.
More idioms and phrases containing wit
see at one's wit's end ; have one's wits about one ; live by one's wits ; scare out of one's wits ; to wit .Synonym Study
Example Sentences
The 50-year-old rapper, also known for hits “Dilemma” and “Ride Wit Me,” was arrested Aug. 7 in his home state at a St. Louis-area casino where he was allegedly carrying four ecstasy pills.
Babitz’s life is the source code for her best books, 1974’s “Eve’s Hollywood” and 1977’s “Slow Days, Fast Company”; her stories are ecstatically, deliriously alive, charged with sexual energy and deadly wit.
In the Hollywood Reporter, Leslie Felperin wrote that while the film "lacks the absurdist wit and decidedly dark edge that elevated the first two Paddington movies", it was "serviceable enough given its limitations".
England's solitary try came from a smart Marcus Smith intercept of a ponderous pass, but they rarely looked as if they could pick a way though the defence via their own wit.
How do you bring her audacious wit, rampaging delivery and path-breaking fearlessness back to life?
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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