# Actual Freedom – Definitions

# Definitions Wots of; Wit Wots of: wots‧of (=‘knows of’) • wot: first and third persons singular indicative present of wit²⁽*⁾. ~ (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia). ⁽*⁾wit² (tr.v. & intr.v.; past and past participle wist; present participle witting; archaic): *to know;* (idioms): to wit, that is to say; namely; [e.g.]: “an overwhelming victory, to wit, a landslide”. [before 900; Middle English; Old English witan, cf. Old Saxon, Gothic witan, Old High German wizzan, Old Norse vita; akin to Latin vidēre, Greek ideîn, ‘to see’, Sanskrit vidati, ‘(he) knows’]. [emphasis added]. ~ (Webster’s 1913 Dictionary). • “There are more eyes fixed on man than *he wots of*; he sees not as he is seen. He thinks himself obscure and unobserved, but let him remember that a cloud on witnesses hold him in full survey”. [emphasis added]. ~ (Genesis 16, Verse 13: Omniscience (‘Thou God seest me’), by Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892), Bible Commentaries, June 15, 1856; Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible). Random Literary Samples. • “Though I be a soldier, and of a free life, look you, I’ve practised more religions than your ignorance *wots of*; and every one of them better than your scurvy, hang-dog, vinegar-faced non conformity!” [emphasis added]. ~ (pp. 159-150, Chapter Nine: ‘The First Day of the Flight’, in the novel “A Gentleman Player: His Adventures on a Secret Mission for Queen Elizabeth”, by Robert Neilson Stephens; 1899, L. C. Page & Co., Inc., Boston). [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34650/34650-h/34650-h.htm]. • “A man with plague-sores at the third degree | Runs till he drops down dead. Thou laughest here! | ’Sooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe, | To void the stuffing of my travel-scrip | And share with thee whatever Jewry yields. | A viscid choler is observable | In tertians, I was nearly bold to say; | And falling-sickness hath a happier cure | Than our school *wots of*: there’s a spider here | Weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs, | Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-grey back; | Take five and drop them ... but who knows his mind”. [emphasis added]. ~ (from ‘An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician’ in “Browning’s Shorter Poems”; Editor: Franklin T. Baker; 4th Ed. 1917; revised and enlarged; ©1899, The Macmillan Co., London). • wots of (=‘knows of’): 1. “Gradually, as they gazed, the pale blue flame, rising higher and higher, gathered force and volume, and the perfume as of violets became distinct on the air, like the savour of a purer life than this century *wots of”*. [emphasis added]. ~ (“The British Barbarians”, by Grant Allen). 2. “In human life there is something like this often done; though, as I said, youth *wots not of it* and does not believe in it”. [emphasis added]. ~ (“The End of a Coil”, by Susan Warner). 3. “‘She has tree brooches, and a necktie better than your best *one wots* you keeps to go seeing Susie Duffy in’, and Lizer giggled, slyly”. [emphasis added]. ~ (“My Brilliant Career”, by Miles Franklin). 4. “‘I promised you, madam, and *he wots it’*, said Cicely, with spirit”. [emphasis added]. ~ (“Unknown to History A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland”, by Charlotte M. Yonge). 5. “V. The Play ‘Wots in a name?’” ~ (“The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke by C. J. Dennis). 6. *“He wots* how to drive a bargain”. [emphasis added]. ~ (“The Armourer’s Prentices by Charlotte Mary Yonge). 7. “That night sleeps Sigurd the Volsung, and awakes on the morrow-morn, | And *wots* at the first but dimly what thing in his life hath been born: | But the sun cometh up in the autumn, and the eve he remembered, | And the word he hath given to Gudrun to love her to the death; | And he longs for the Niblung maiden, that her love may cherish his heart, | Lest e’en as a Godhead banished he dwell in the world apart: | The new sun smiteth his body as he leaps from the golden bed, | And doeth on his raiment and is fair apparelled; | Then he goes his ways through the chambers, and greeteth none at all | Till he comes to the garth and the garden in the nook of the Niblung wall”. [emphasis added]. ~ (“The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs”, by William Morris). 8. “Trust me, sir, there is a far more hellish mischief brewing than any man *wots of”*. [emphasis added]. ~ (“Salute to Adventurers”, by John Buchan). 9. “I has a friend *wots* a h-uncle that’s ill: can you spare her, Bill, to attind him?” [emphasis added]. ~ (“Lucretia, Volume 6”, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton). 10. “Have you got a spare copy of that reg’lar bulletin that the Stage Kempany issoos every ten minutes to each passenger to tell ’em where we are, how far it is to the next place, and wots the state o’ the weather gin’rally?” ~ (“A Protegee of Jack Hamlin’s and Other Stories”, by Bret Harte). 11. “Many will meet us in the depths of the forest and go away thinking that we are just common plugs of whom the world *wots not;* but there is where they will fool themselves”. [emphasis added]. ~ (“Remarks”, by Bill Nye). 12. “Who now wots of the bones of Weland the wise, or which is the barrow that banks them?” ~ (“Anglo-Saxon Literature by John Earle). 13. “But Denewulf *wots not* of it”. [emphasis added]. ~ (“A Maid at King Alfred’s Court”, by Lucy Foster Madison). 14. “First, think on the poor; the full belly *wots not* what the hungry feels”. [emphasis added]. ~ (“Early English Meals and Manners”, by Various). 15. “There he finds the thumb-piece gone from the latch, to him a well-known sign that Mother Fitch has gone out a-nursing; so, pulling the hidden string *he wots of,* he lifts the latch within, and the door opens to his hand”. [emphasis added]. ~ (“A Set of Rogues”, by Frank Barrett). 16. “He *wots it,* doth he?” [emphasis added]. ~ (“Unknown to History A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland”, by Charlotte M. Yonge). 17. “What loss feels he that *wots not* what he loses?” [emphasis added]. ~ (William Broome; 1689-1745). • woteth (third person singular): third person singular present of wit², to know. ~ (Webster’s 1913 Dictionary). • wot (vb.; archaic): first and third person singular present tense of wit². [Middle English wat, from Old English wāt]. ~ (American Heritage Dictionary). • wit² (v.; wist, witting, first and third person singular present tense wot; archaic; tr.v.): to be or become aware of; learn; (intr.v.): to know; (idiom): to wit; that is to say; namely. [Middle English, from Old English witan]. ~ (American Heritage Dictionary). • wot (vb.; archaic or dialect): a form of the present tense (indicative mood) of wit²; used with: I, she, he, it, or a singular noun. ~ (Collins English Dictionary). • wit (vb.; archaic): to be or become aware of (something); (adv.): to wit: that is to say; namely (used to introduce statements, as in legal documents). [Old English witan; related to Old High German wizzan, German wissen, Old Norse vita, Latin vidēre, ‘to see’]. ~ (Collins English Dictionary). • wit² (tr.v.; past and past participle wist; present part. witting; archaic): to know; (idioms): to wit: that is to say; namely; [e.g.]: “an overwhelming victory, to wit, a landslide”. [before 900; Middle English; Old English witan, cf. Old Saxon, Gothic witan, Old High German wizzan, Old Norse vita; akin to Latin vidēre, Greek ideîn, to see, Sanskrit vidati, ‘(he) knows’]. ~ (Webster’s College Dictionary). • wot: first and third persons singular indicative present of wit¹. ~ (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia). Wit: • wit¹ (v.; present indicative first person wot, second person wost (erroneously wottest, wotst), third person wot (erroneously wotteth), plural wit, preterit (=‘a term formerly used to refer to the simple past tense’) wist, past participle wist (or witcn): to know; be or become aware; used with or without an object, the object when present often being a clause or statement; • (a) present tense (archaic): I wot (wote), thou wost (erroneously wottest, wotst), he wot (erroneously wotteth), plural, we, ye (you), they wit; [e.g.]: “But nonetheless, yit wot I will also | That there nis noon dwelling in this country, | That either hath in heaven or hell ybe, | Ne may of it none other ways witen. | But as he hath heard said or found it written”. (Geoffrey Chaucer, “Good Women”, 1. 7); “They sayn to hir Woman, what weepist thou? She said to hem, For they have taken a way my lord, and I wool not where they have putt him”. (John Wycliffe, John xx. 13); “Dead long ygoe, I wot, thou haddest bin”. (Edmund Spenser, “Faërie Queen”, I. ii. 18); “Wottest thou what I say, man?” (”The World and the Child”; Old English Plays, I. 264); “But he refused, and said unto his master’s wife, Behold, my master wotteth not what is with me in the house”. (Gen. xxxix. 8); “I wot well where he is”. (Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet”, iii. 2. 139); “Nay, nay, God wot, so thou wert nobly born. | Thou hast a pleasant presence”. (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Baron, 1809-1892, “Gareth and Lynette”); • (b) preterit tense (archaic): I, etc., wist (erroneously wotted); [e.g.]: “When she had said these things, she was turned aback, and syȝ Jhesu stondinge, and wiste not for it was Jhesu”. (John Wycliffe, John xx. 14); “I which woted best | His wretched dryftes”. (Thomas Sackville, “Complaint of Henry, Duke of Buckingham”, 1563); “He stood still, and wotted not what to do”. (John Bunyan, “Pilgrim’s Progress”, 1678, i.); • (c) infinitive: wit (to wit); hence, to do to wit, to cause (one) to know;[e.g.]: “For though thou see me hideous and horrible to look on, I do the to wytene that it is made be Enchantment”. (Sir John Mandeville, “Mandeville’s Travels”, p. 25); “And first it is to wyt that the Holy Loude, which was delivered to the xij. tribes of Israeli, in parte it was called ye kingdom of Jude”. (Sir Richard Guylforde, “Pilgrimage”, 1506, p. 47); “What wit have we (poor fools) to wit what will serve us?” (Sir Thomas More, “Comfort against Tribulation”; 1573, fol. 14); “And his sister stood afar off to wit what would be done to him”. (Ex. ii. 4); “Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia”. (2 Cor. viii. 1); “Now please you wit | The epitaph is for Marina writ”. (Shakespeare, “Pericles”, iv. 4. 31); the phrase ‘to wit’ is now used chiefly to call attention to some particular, or as introductory to a detailed statement of what has been just before mentioned generally, and is equivalent to ‘namely’, ‘that is to say’; as, ‘there were three present—to wit, Mr. Brown, Mr. Green, and Mr. Black’; [e.g.]: “Ius Ciuile was the order and manner in old days to forme their pleas in law, that is to witt to cite, answer, accuse, prove, deny, allege, relate, to give sentence, and to execute”. (Antonio de Guevara, “Letters”; tr. by Edward Hellowes, 1577, p. 16); “That which Moses saith, God built a woman, The Talmud interpreted, He made eurles, and he brought her to Adam, to wit with leaping and dancing”. (Samuel Purchas, “Purchas His Pilgrimage”, 1613, p. 214); • (d) present participle: witting, sometimes weeting (erroneously wotting); cf. unwitting; [e.g.]: “Yet are these feet... | Swift-winged with desire to get a grave, | As witting I no other comfort have”. (Shakespeare, 1 Henry, VI, ii. 5. 16); • (e) past participle (obsolete or archaic): wist; [e.g.]: “For harmes myghten folwen mo than two | If it were wist”. (Geoffrey Chaucer, “Troilus”, i. 615);“Nought, nought but the grey border-stone that is wist | To dilate and assume a wild shape in the mist”. (Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Lay of the Brown Rosary”, 1844, 1st Part, IV). [a preterit-present verb whose forms have been much confused and misused in modern English, in which, except in the set phrase “to wit”, it is now used only archaically; early modern English also weet, wete, from Middle English weten, witen (present first person wot, wat, second person wost, wast, third person wot, woot, wat (also first person wite, second person witest, third person witeth, wites, witez, contracted wit), plural witeth, weteth (subjunctive wite, witen), preterit wist, wiste, wiste, wuste, sometimes by assimilation wisse, present participle witand, wittand), from Anglo-Saxon witan (present indicative first person wāt, second person wāst, third person wāt, plural wiston—an old preterit used as present; preterit wiste, plural wiston) = Old Saxon witan (present indicative wēt) = Old Friesian wita, weta (present wēt) = Dutch weten (present weet, preterit wist, past participle geweten) = Low German weten = Old High German wizzan, Middle High German wizzen, German wissen, ‘know’ (present first wiss, second weisst, third weiss, plural wissen, preterit wusste. past participle gewusst) = Icelandic vita (present veit, preterit vissa, past participle vitathr) = Swedish veta (present vet, preterit visste, past participle vetat) = Danish vide (present veed, preterit vidste, past participle vidst) = Gothic wittan (present wait, preterit wissa, past participle not found), ‘know’; the infinitive witan. with short vowel, and sense ‘know’, being a later form and sense, developed from the preterit and subjunctive of wītan, preterit *wāt, ‘see’, the present wāt, ‘know’, being originally this preterit *wāt, ‘saw’, ‘I have seen’ (see wite¹); Teutonic √wit, ‘see’ = Old Bulgarian vidieti = Serbian vidjeti = Bohemian widěti = Russian vidietǐ, ‘see’ = Latin vīdēre, ‘see’ = Greek ιὁεὶν, ‘see’ (perfect οὶὁα, ‘I know’ = English wot) = Sanskrit. √vid, ‘see’, ‘perceive’; from the verb wit¹ are ultimately English wit¹, noun, wit², wise¹, wise² (guise, disguise), wise³, wiss, wisdom, etc., witch, wick⁷, wicked, wiseacre, iwis (or ywis=certainly; assuredly), wis¹, wis², witness, witler, witterly, wizard, etc, (see also wite¹, wite²); from the Latin vīdēre are ultimately English visage, vision, visit, visual, etc. (see under vision); from the Greek idea, idol, idolon, eidolon, etc., and the element -eid- in kaleidoscope, -id in the termination -oid, etc.]. ~ (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia). • wit¹ (n.): 1. knowledge; wisdom; intelligence; sagacity; judgment; sense; [e.g.]: “It is but a Dido”, quod this doctor, “a dysoures tale. Al the witt of this world and wiȝte mennes strength. Can nouȝt confer men a pees between the pope and his enemies”. (Piers Plowman; B, xiii. 172); “Many things here among us have been found by chance, which no wit could ever have devised”. (Sir Thomas More, “Utopia”; tr. by Robinson, i); “Had I but had the wit yestreen | That I hae cott the day—I’d paid my kane seven times to hell | Ere you’d been won away!” (“The Young Tamlane” Child’s Ballads, I. 125); “I have the wit to think my master is a kind of a knave”. (Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, iii. 1. 262); “If a man is honest, it detracts nothing from his merits to say he had the wit to see that honesty is the best policy”. (Edward Dicey, 1832-1911, “Victor Emmanuel”, p. 112); 2. mind; understanding; intellect; reason; in the plural, the faculties or powers of the mind or intellect: senses: as, ‘to be out of one’s wits’; ‘he has all his wits about him’; [e.g.]: “So my witte wax and waned til I a fole were, | And somme lakked my lyf allowed it fewe. | And leten me for a lorel”; (Piers Ploirman, B, xv. 3); “Who knew the wit of the Lord, or who was his councillor?” (John Wycliffe, Rom. xi. 34); “Many young wittes be driven to hate learning before they know what learning is”. (Roger Ascham, “The Schoolmaster”, 1570, p. 19); “His wits are not so blunt”. (Shakespeare, “Much Ado About Nothing”, iii. 5. 11); “I am in my wits; I am a labouring man. | And we have seldom leisure to run mad”. (John Fletcher and William Rowley, “Maid in the Mill”, iii. 2). “Sir John Russel also was taken there, but he, feigning himself to be out of his Wits, escaped for that Time”; (Sir Richard Baker, “Chronicles, p. 150); 3†. knowledge; information; [e.g.]: “The Child of Wynd got wit of it, | Which filled his heart with woe”; (“The Laidley Worm of Spindleston-heugh”; Child’s Ballads, I. 283); “Let neither my father nor mother get wit. | But that I’m coming hame”. (“The Queen’s Marie”; Child’s Ballads, 111. 119); 4. ingenuity; skill; [e.g.]: “Your knyf withe all your wytte | Unto your self both clean and sharp conserve. | That honestly ye mowe your own mete kerve”. (“Babees Book”; E. E. T. S., p. 6); “What strength cannot do, man’s wit?—being the most forcible engine—hath often effected”. (Walter Raleigh, (Edward Arber, 1836-1912 “English Garner”), I. 16). 5. (rare): imagination; the imaginative faculty; [e.g.]: “Wit in the poet... is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer, which... searches over all the memory for the species or ideas of those things which it designs to represent”. (John Dryden, “Annus Mirabilis”, 1667, To Sir R. Howard); 6. the keen perception and apt expression of those connections between ideas which awaken pleasure and especially amusement; see the quotations and the synonyms; [e.g.]: “True wit consists in the resemblance of ideas. ... But every resemblance of ideas is not what we call wit, and it must be such an one that gives delight and surprise to the reader. Where the likeness is obvious, it creates no surprise, and is not wit. Thus, when a poet tells us that the bosom of his mistress is as white as snow, there is no wit in the comparison; but when he adds, with a sigh, it is as cold too, it then grows into wit”. (Joseph Addison: “Spectator”, №. 62); “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 and agreeable visions in the fancy”. (John Locke, “Human Understanding”, II. xi. 2); “In wit, if by wit be meant the power of perceiving analogies between things which appear to have nothing in common, he never had an equal”. (Thomas Macaulay, “An Essay of Francis Bacon”); 7†. conceit; idea; thought; design; scheme; plan; [e.g.]: “To senden him into some far contree | There as this Jasoun may destroyed be; | This was his wit”. (Geoffrey Chaucer, “Good Women”, 1. 1420); “Was’t not a pretty wit of mine, master poet, to have had him rode into Puckeridge with a horn before him?” (Thomas Dekker and John Webster, “Northward Ho”, 1607, v. 1); at one’s wit’s end: see end; kind wit†: see kind¹; the five wits: the five senses; in general, the faculties of the mind; the five wits have been fancifully enumerated as common wit, imagination, fantasy, estimation, memory; [e.g.]: “The deadly synnes that been entred into thyn herte by thy five wittes”. (Geoffrey Chaucer, “Tale of Melibens”); “If thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits than... I have in my whole five”. (Shakespeare, “Romeo and Julie”, ii. 4. 77, 78); “Alone and warming his five wits. | The white owl in the belfry sits”. (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Owl”); to drive to one’s wit’s end: see drive; to have one’s wits in a creel: see creel; to live by one’s wits: to live by temporary shifts or expedients, as one without regular means of living; [e.g.]: “Joseph Addison sent to beg Gay, who was then living by his wits about town, to come to Holland House”. (Thomas Macaulay, “The Life and Writings of Addison”); (synonyms): 8. wit, humour; in writers down to the time of Alexander Pope, 1688-1744, wit generally meant the serious kind of wit; [e.g.]: “Serious wit, therefore, is neither more nor less than quick wisdom, or, according to Pope,—True wit is nature to advantage drest, What oft was thought, but ne’er so well exprest”. (Gilbert Burnet, 1643-1715, Bishop of Salisbury); “Look, he’s winding up the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike”. (Shakespeare, “Tempest”, ii. l. 13); in more recent use wit in the singular generally implies comic wit; in that sense it is different from humour; one principal difference is that wit always lies in some form of words, while humour may be expressed by manner, as a smile, a grimace, an attitude; underlying this is the fact, consistent with the original meaning of the words, that humour goes more deeply into the nature of the thought, while wit catches pleasing but occult or far-fetched resemblances between things really unlike: a good pun shows wit; Washington Irving’s “History of New York” is a piece of sustained humour, the humour lying in the portrayal of character, the nature of the incidents, etc.; again, “Wit may, I think, be regarded as a purely intellectual process, while humour is a sense of the ridiculous controlled by feeling, and coexistent often with the gentlest and deepest pathos” (Henry Reed, “Lectures on English Literature”, 1876, I. 357); hence humour is always kind, while wit may be unkind in the extreme; Jonathan Swift’s “Travels of Gulliver” is much too severe a satire to be called a work of humour; it is essential to the effect of wit that the form in which it is expressed should be brief; humour may be heightened in its effect by expansion into full forms of statement, description, etc. Wit more often than humour depends upon passing circumstances for its effect; [e.g.]: “The best and most agreeable specimen of English humour (it is humour in contrast to wit) which belongs to that period is Richard Steele’s invention, and Joseph Addison’s use, of the character of Sir Roger de Coverley. ... The same species of pure, genial, wise, and healthful humour has been sustained in the incomparable “Vicar of Wakefield”, and in the writings of our countryman Washington Irving”. (Henry Reed, “Lectures on English Literature”, xi. 369); “While wit is a purely intellectual thing, into every act of the humorous mind there is an influx of the moral nature; rays, direct or refracted, from the will and the affections, from the disposition and the temperament, enter into all humour; and thence it is that humour is of a diffusive quality, pervading an entire course of thought; while wit—because it has no existence apart from certain logical relations of thought which are definitely assignable, and can be counted even—is always punctually concentrated within the circle of a few words”. (Thomas De Quincey, “John Paul Frederick Richter”, 1821); “Dr. Trusler says that wit relates to the matter, humour to the manner; that our old comedies abounded with wit, and our old actors with humour; that humour always excites laughter but wit does not; that a fellow of humour will seta whole company in a roar, but that there is a smartness in wit which cuts while it pleases, wit, he adds, always implies sense and abilities, while humour does not; humour is chiefly relished by the vulgar, but education is requisite to comprehend wit”. (William Fleming, “Vocabulary of Philosophy”, 1857); “It is no uncommon thing to hear ‘He has humour rather than wit’. Here the expression commonly means pleasantry; for whoever has humour has wit, although it does not follow that whoever has wit has humour. Humour is wit appertaining to character, and indulges in breadth of drollery rather than in play and brilliancy of point. Wit vibrates and spurts; humour springs up exuberantly as from a fountain and runs on. In William Congreve (1670-1729, an English playwright remembered for his comedies) you wonder what he will say next. In Joseph Addison (1672-1719, an English essayist and poet who, with Richard Steele, 1672-1729, founded ‘The Spectator’, 1711-1714, and contributed most of its essays, including the ‘Sir Roger de Coverley Papers’) you repose on what is said, listening with assured expectation of something congenial and pertinent”. (Walter Savage Landor, 1775-1864, “Imaginary Conversations of the Greeks”, 1853); “Small room for Fancy’s many chorded lyre, | For Wit’s bright rockets with their trains of fire”. (Oliver Wendell Holmes, “An After-Dinner Poem”, 1793); “If you wish to know what humour is, I should say read ‘Don Quixote’... I am not speaking of the fun of the book, of which there is plenty, and sometimes boisterous enough, but of that deeper and more delicate quality, suggestive of remote analogies and essential incongruities, which alone deserves the name of humour”. (James Russell Lowell, 1819-1891, “Don Quixote”, page 129⁽*⁾[from Middle English wit, wyt (plural wittes, from Anglo-Saxon wit, ‘knowledge’ = Old Saxon *wit in compound fire-wit, ‘curiosity’ = Old Friesian wit = Middle Low German wite, wete = Old High German wizzī, Middle High German witze, German witz, ‘knowledge’, ‘understanding’, ‘wisdom’, = Icelandic vit = Swedish vett = Danish vid, ‘wit’, ‘knowledge’; cf. Gothic un-wits, ‘without understanding’, ‘foolish’, un-witi, ‘ignorance’, ‘foolishness’; from the verb]. ~ (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia). ⁽*⁾ [https://archive.org/details/writingsjamesru06lowegoog/page/n144/mode/1up]. • wit² (n.): one who has discernment, reason, or judgment; a person of acute perception; especially, one who detects between associated ideas the finer resemblances or contrasts which give pleasure or enjoyment to the mind, and who gives expression to these for the entertainment of others; often, a person who has a keen perception of the incongruous or ludicrous, and uses it for the amusement and frequently at the expense of others;; [e.g.]: “By providing that choice wits after reasonable time spent in contemplation may at the length either enter into that holy vocation... or else give place and suffer others to succeed in their rooms”. (Richard Hooker, ”Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Polity”, v. 80); “O, sure I am, the wits of former days | To subjects worse have given admiring praise”. (Shakespeare, “Sonnets”, LIX); “When I die, | I’ll build an almshouse for decayed wits”. (Thomas Middleton and William Rowley, “Wit at Several Weapons”, Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher folios, v. 2); “If you examine the sayings of Charles Lamb, Sydney Smith, and other great wits, you will perceive that what amuses you is the sudden perception of some fine resemblance”. (James Freeman Clarke, “Self-Culture”, p. 145). [probably another use, and certainly now regarded as another use, of wit¹, verb; cf. spirit, ‘a person of lively mind or energy’, from spirit, ‘liveliness’, ‘energy’; witness, ‘a person who has knowledge’, from witness, ‘knowledge’; but wit as applied to a person may in part represent, as it may phonetically descend from, the Middle English *wit, wet, wite, weote, from Anglo-Saxon wita, weota, also gewita, ‘a man of knowledge’, ‘an adviser’, ‘counsellor’ = Old French wita, ‘a witness’ = Old High German wizzo, ‘a witness’; lit. ‘one who knows’, with formative a- (-an) of agent, from witan, ‘know’: see wit¹, verb; this Anglo-Saxon wita appears in the historical term witenagemot, Anglo-Saxon witena gemōt, ‘wits’ moot’, ‘moot of counsellors’, ‘a council’, ‘parliament’]. ~ (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia). • wit² (intr.v.): to play the wit; be witty: with an indefinite it; [e.g.]: “Burton doth pretend to wit it in his pulpit-libell”. (Peter Heylin, 1599-1662, “Life of Archbishop William Laud”, 1668, p. 260). (Davies). [from wit², noun].~ (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia). • wit³† see wite². ~ (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia). • witful† (adj.): full of wit, knowledge, or wisdom; wise; knowing; sensible; [e.g.]: “’Tis passing miraculous that your dull and blind worship should so suddenly turn both sightfull and witfull”. (George Chapman, “Memorable Masque of Middle Temple and Lincoln’s Inn”, 1613). [from Middle English witful, witfol, witvol; from wit¹ + -ful]. ~ (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia). • witan (n.; pl.): in Anglo-Saxon history, members of the witenagemot; [e.g.]: “As witan from every quarter of the land stood about his throne, men realised how the King of Wessex had risen into the King of England”. (John Richard Green, “The Conquest of England”, p. 215); “Thou art the mightiest voice in England, man; | Thy voice will lead the Witan”. (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Harold: A Drama: A Lie that is Half-Truth is the Darkest of all Lies”, ii. 2). [Anglo-Saxon, plural of wita (Middle English wite, weote, wete), ‘a man of knowledge’, ‘member of a council or parliament’: see wit²]. ~ (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia). RETURN TO DEFINITIONS INDEX RICHARD’S HOME PAGE The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one. Richard's Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997- . All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer and Use Restrictions and Guarantee of Authenticity