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wight

 
Dictionary: wight1   (wīt) pronunciation
n. Obsolete
A living being; a creature.

[Middle English, from Old English wiht.]


wight2 (wīt) pronunciation
adj. Archaic
Valorous; brave.

[Middle English, from Old Norse vīgt, neuter of vīgr, able to fight.]


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Wordsmith Words: wight
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(wyt)

noun
1. A living being.
2. A supernatural being.

Etymology
From Middle English, from Old English wiht

adjective
Strong and valiant, especially in war.
[From Middle English, from Old Norse vigt.

Usage
"Was there any other thing in which I could procure myself to be ignominiously repulsed by this lean, penniless wight?" — Herman Melville; Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street, 1853.

"In this by place of nature there abode, in a remote period of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane, who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, `tarried,' in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity." — Washington Irving; The Legend of Sleepy Hollow; The Sketch Book; 1819/1820.


WordNet: wight
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Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: a human being; `wight' is an archaic term
  Synonym: creature


Wikipedia: Wight
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Wight, from Old English word wiht, is a Middle English word used to describe a creature or a living being. It is akin to Old High German wiht, meaning a creature or thing.[1]

In its original usage the word wight described a living human being.[2] More recently, the word has been used within the fantasy genre to describe undead or wraith-like creatures: corpses with a part of their decayed soul still in residence, often draining life from their victims. Notable examples of this include the undead Barrow-Wights from the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and the wights of Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.

Modern German "Wicht" is a cognate, meaning "small person, dwarf", and also "unpleasant person"; in Low German it means "girl". The word is a cognate with Dutch wicht, German Wicht, Old Norse vættir and Swedish vätte. It is not related to the English word "witch". The Wicht, Wichtel or Wichtelchen of Germanic folklore is most commonly translated into English as an imp, a small, shy character who often does helpful domestic chores when nobody is looking (as in the Tale of the Cobbler's Shoes).

In literature and culture

Examples of the word used in classic English literature and poetry:

  • Edmund Spenser (1590-1596), The Faerie Queene, I.i.6.8-9:
    "That every wight to shrowd it did constrain,
    And this fair couple eke to shroud themselues were fain."

See also

References

  1. ^ Merriam-Webster, 1974.
  2. ^ Wight, in the Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, 1974 edition.

 
 
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Weight (family name)
Wight (family name)
infortuned

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Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wordsmith Words. © 2009 Wordsmith.org. All rights reserved.  Read more
WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Wight" Read more

 

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