witとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源 1

From Middle English wit, from 古期英語 witt (“understanding, intellect, sense, knowledge, consciousness, conscience”), from Proto-West Germanic *witi, from Proto-Germanic *witją (“knowledge, reason”), from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“see, know”).

Cognate with Dutch weet, German Witz, Danish vid, Swedish vett, Norwegian Bokmål vett, Gothic ������������ (unwiti, “ignorance”), Latin vīdī (“see (pf.)”), Bulgarian вям (vjam), Russian ве́дать (védatʹ), Sanskrit विद्या (vidyā). Compare wise.

名詞

wit (countable かつ uncountable, 複数形 wits)

1. (now usually in the plural) Sanity.

   He's gone completely out of his wits.

2. (obsolete, usually in the plural) The senses.
3. Intellectual ability; faculty of thinking, reasoning.

   Where she has gone to is beyond the wit of man to say.

4. The ability to think quickly; mental cleverness, especially under short time constraints.

   My father had a quick wit and a steady hand.

5. Intelligence; common sense.

   The opportunity was right in front of you, and you didn't even have the wit to take it!

   • 15th c., “[The Creation]”, in Wakefield Mystery Plays; Re-edited in George England, Alfred W. Pollard, editors, The Towneley Plays (Early English Text Society Extra Series; LXXI), London: […] Oxford University Press, 1897, →OCLC, page 6, lines 174–179:

     I gif the witt, I gif the strenght, / of all thou sees, of brede & lengthe; / thou shall be wonder wise. / Myrth and Ioy to haue at will, / All thi likyng to fulfill, / and dwell in paradise.

     I give thee consciousness, I give thee strength over all thou seest, over all its breadth and length thou shalt be wondrously wise. Mirth and joy [you shall] have at will to fulfil all thy liking and dwell in paradise.

   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene ii:

     Wel, wel (Meander) thou art deepely read:
     And hauing thee, I haue a iewell ſure:
     Go on my Lord, and giue your charge I ſay,
     Thy wit wil make vs Conquerors to day.

   • 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 23”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:

     O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:
     To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.

6. Humour, especially when clever or quick.

   The best man's speech was hilarious, full of wit and charm.

   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVIII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 152:

     Wit is just as much put upon—blamed for a thousand impertinences over which it would not have held for a moment its glittering shield; it is like the radiant fairy doomed to wander over earth, concealed and transformed, and only allowed on rare occasions to shine forth in its true and sparkling form. It is well that wit is an impalpable and ethereal substance, or it must long since have evaporated in indignation at that peculiarly wretched and mistaken race, its imitators.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     The humor of my proposition appealed more strongly to Miss Trevor than I had looked for, and from that time forward she became her old self again; […] . Our table in the dining-room became again the abode of scintillating wit and caustic repartee, Farrar bracing up to his old standard, and the demand for seats in the vicinity rose to an animated competition.

   • 1996 February 4, Jennifer Crittenden, “Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield”, in The Simpsons, season 7, episode 14, production code 3F13:

     Evelyn Peters: "Don't worry, Marge. Her idea of wit is nothing more than an incisive observation humorously phrased and delivered with impeccable timing".

   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, London: Heinemann, →OCLC, page 37:

     ...the cemetery—which people of shattering wit like Sampson never tired of calling ‘the dead centre of town’...

7. A person who tells funny anecdotes or jokes; someone witty.

   Your friend is quite a wit, isn't he?

   • 1601, Ben Jonson, Poetaster or The Arraignment: […], London: […] [R. Bradock] for M[atthew] L[ownes] […], published 1602, →OCLC, Act III:

     Tuc[ca]. […] Can thy Author doe it impudently enough? / Hiſt[rio]. O, I warrant you, Captaine: and ſpitefully inough too; he ha's one of the moſt ouerflowing villanous wits, in Rome. He will ſlander any man that breathes; If he diſguſt him. / Tucca. I'le know the poor, egregious, nitty Raſcall; and he haue ſuch commendable Qualities, I'le cheriſh him: […]

   • 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author’s Oeconomy and Happy Life among the Houyhnhnms. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […], volume II, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part IV (A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms), page 301:

     […] here were no Gibers, Cenſurers, Backbiters, Pick-pockets, Highwaymen, Houſebreakers, Attorneys, Bawds, Buffoons, Gameſters, Politicians, Wits, ſplenetick tedious Talkers, Controvertiſts, Raviſhers, Murderers, Robbers, Virtuoſo's; […]

同意語

• (intellectual ability): See also Thesaurus:intelligence

派生語

参考

(type of humor):

• acid
• biting
• cutting
• lambent

語源 2

From Middle English witen, from 古期英語 witan, from Proto-West Germanic *witan, from Proto-Germanic *witaną, from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“see, know”).

Cognate with Icelandic vita, Dutch weten, German wissen, Swedish veta, and Latin videō (“I see”). Compare guide.

動詞

wit (see below for this verb’s conjugation)

2. (transitive, intransitive, chiefly archaic) Know, be aware of (constructed with of when used intransitively).

   You committed terrible actions — to wit, murder and theft — and should be punished accordingly.

   They are meddling in matters that men should not wit of.

   • 1483, Thomas Malory, Le morte d'Arthur:

     Truly, said fair Elaine, I shall do all that I may do, for as fain would I know and wit where he is become as you or any of his kin, or queen Guenever, and cause great enough have I thereto as well as any other. And wit ye well, said fair Elaine to Sir Bors, I would lose my life for him rather than he should be hurt.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 2:3–4:

     And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.

   • 1849, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, St. Luke the Painter, lines 5–8:

     but soon having wist
     How sky-breadth and field-silence and this day
     Are symbols also in some deeper way,
     She looked through these to God and was God’s priest.

使用する際の注意点

• As a preterite-present verb, the third-person singular indicative form is not wits but wot; the plural indicative forms conform to the infinitive: we wit, ye wit, they wit.
• To wit is now defective because, outside of conscious archaizing, it can only be used in the infinitive.

Conjugation

派生語

• bewit
• to wit
• unwitting
• witness

語源 3

From with.

発音

• (Southern American English) (before consonants) IPA^(key): /wɪt/, (before yod) /wɪtʃ/

前置詞

wit

1. (Southern US) Pronunciation spelling of with.

アナグラム

• Tiw, Twi, twi-

語源

From Proto-West Germanic *wit, from Proto-Germanic *wet, from a suffixed form of *wéy (see wē). Cognate with North Frisian wat, Old Norse vit, Gothic ������ (wit), and Lithuanian vèdu.

発音

• IPA^(key): /wit/

代名詞

wit (personal)

1. (the first-person dual nominative) we two

アナグラム

• Tiw, Twi, twi-

アナグラム

• Twi