[ 1913 Webster ]

☞ The present tense was inflected as follows; sing. 1st pers. wot; 2d pers. wost, or wot(t)est; 3d pers. wot, or wot(t)eth; pl. witen, or wite. The following variant forms also occur; pres. sing. 1st & 3d pers. wat, woot; pres. pl. wyten, or wyte, weete, wote, wot; imp. wuste (Southern dialect); p. pr. wotting. Later, other variant or corrupt forms are found, as, in Shakespeare, 3d pers. sing. pres. wots. [ 1913 Webster ]

Brethren, we do you to wit [ make you to know ] of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia. 2 Cor. viii. 1. [ 1913 Webster ]

Thou wost full little what thou meanest. Chaucer. [ 1913 Webster ]

We witen not what thing we prayen here. Chaucer. [ 1913 Webster ]

When that the sooth in wist. Chaucer. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ This verb is now used only in the infinitive, to wit, which is employed, especially in legal language, to call attention to a particular thing, or to a more particular specification of what has preceded, and is equivalent to namely, that is to say. [ 1913 Webster ]

1. Mind; intellect; understanding; sense. [ 1913 Webster ]

Who knew the wit of the Lord? or who was his counselor? Wyclif (Rom. xi. 34). [ 1913 Webster ]

A prince most prudent, of an excellent
And unmatched wit and judgment. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

Will puts in practice what wit deviseth. Sir J. Davies. [ 1913 Webster ]

He wants not wit the dander to decline. Dryden. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. A mental faculty, or power of the mind; -- used in this sense chiefly in the plural, and in certain phrases; as, to lose one's wits; at one's wits' end, and the like. “Men's wittes ben so dull.” Chaucer. [ 1913 Webster ]

I will stare him out of his wits. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. Felicitous association of objects not usually connected, so as to produce a pleasant surprise; also. the power of readily combining objects in such a manner. [ 1913 Webster ]

The definition of wit is only this, that it is a propriety of thoughts and words; or, in other terms, thoughts and words elegantly adapted to the subject. Dryden. [ 1913 Webster ]

Wit which discovers partial likeness hidden in general diversity. Coleridge. [ 1913 Webster ]

Wit lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures in the fancy. Locke. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. A person of eminent sense or knowledge; a man of genius, fancy, or humor; one distinguished for bright or amusing sayings, for repartee, and the like. [ 1913 Webster ]

In Athens, where books and wits were ever busier than in any other part of Greece, I find but only two sorts of writings which the magistrate cared to take notice of; those either blasphemous and atheistical, or libelous. Milton. [ 1913 Webster ]

Intemperate wits will spare neither friend nor foe. L'Estrange. [ 1913 Webster ]

A wit herself, Amelia weds a wit. Young. [ 1913 Webster ]

The five wits, the five senses; also, sometimes, the five qualities or faculties, common wit, imagination, fantasy, estimation, and memory. Chaucer. Nares. [ 1913 Webster ]

But my five wits nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

Syn. -- Ingenuity; humor; satire; sarcasm; irony; burlesque. -- Wit, Humor. Wit primarily meant mind; and now denotes the power of seizing on some thought or occurrence, and, by a sudden turn, presenting it under aspects wholly new and unexpected -- apparently natural and admissible, if not perfectly just, and bearing on the subject, or the parties concerned, with a laughable keenness and force. “What I want, ” said a pompous orator, aiming at his antagonist, “is common sense.” “Exactly!” was the whispered reply. The pleasure we find in wit arises from the ingenuity of the turn, the sudden surprise it brings, and the patness of its application to the case, in the new and ludicrous relations thus flashed upon the view. Humor is a quality more congenial to the English mind than wit. It consists primarily in taking up the peculiarities of a humorist (or eccentric person) and drawing them out, as Addison did those of Sir Roger de Coverley, so that we enjoy a hearty, good-natured laugh at his unconscious manifestation of whims and oddities. From this original sense the term has been widened to embrace other sources of kindly mirth of the same general character. In a well-known caricature of English reserve, an Oxford student is represented as standing on the brink of a river, greatly agitated at the sight of a drowning man before him, and crying out, “O that I had been introduced to this gentleman, that I might save his life!” The “Silent Woman” of Ben Jonson is one of the most humorous productions, in the original sense of the term, which we have in our language. [ 1913 Webster ]

1. One who practices the black art, or magic; one regarded as possessing supernatural or magical power by compact with an evil spirit, esp. with the Devil; a sorcerer or sorceress; -- now applied chiefly or only to women, but formerly used of men as well. [ 1913 Webster ]

There was a man in that city whose name was Simon, a witch. Wyclif (Acts viii. 9). [ 1913 Webster ]

He can not abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears she's a witch. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. An ugly old woman; a hag. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. One who exercises more than common power of attraction; a charming or bewitching person; also, one given to mischief; -- said especially of a woman or child. [ Colloq. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

4. (Geom.) A certain curve of the third order, described by Maria Agnesi under the name versiera. [ 1913 Webster ]

5. (Zool.) The stormy petrel. [ 1913 Webster ]

6. A Wiccan; an adherent or practitioner of Wicca, a religion which in different forms may be paganistic and nature-oriented, or ditheistic. The term witch applies to both male and female adherents in this sense. [ PJC ]

Witch balls, a name applied to the interwoven rolling masses of the stems of herbs, which are driven by the winds over the steppes of Tartary. Cf. Tumbleweed. Maunder (Treas. of Bot.) --
Witches' besoms (Bot.), tufted and distorted branches of the silver fir, caused by the attack of some fungus. Maunder (Treas. of Bot.) --
Witches' butter (Bot.), a name of several gelatinous cryptogamous plants, as Nostoc commune, and Exidia glandulosa. See Nostoc. --
Witch grass (Bot.), a kind of grass (Panicum capillare) with minute spikelets on long, slender pedicels forming a light, open panicle. --
Witch meal (Bot.), vegetable sulphur. See under Vegetable. [ 1913 Webster ]

[ I 'll ] witch sweet ladies with my words and looks. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

Whether within us or without
The spell of this illusion be
That witches us to hear and see. Lowell. [ 1913 Webster ]

1. The practices or art of witches. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Hence: Sorcery; enchantments; intercourse with evil spirits. [ 1913 Webster + PJC ]

3. Power more than natural; irresistible influence. [ 1913 Webster ]

He hath a witchcraft
Over the king in 's tongue. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. Adherence to or the practice of Wicca. In this sense the term does not necessarily include attempts at practice of magic, other than by prayers to the deities. [ PJC ]

Great Comus,
Deep skilled in all his mother's witcheries. Milton. [ 1913 Webster ]

A woman infamous . . . for witcheries. Sir W. Scott. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Fascination; irresistible influence; enchantment. [ 1913 Webster ]

He never felt
The witchery of the soft blue sky. Wordsworth. [ 1913 Webster ]

The dear, dear witchery of song. Bryant. [ 1913 Webster ]