Shak.
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.
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.
Wit which discovers partial likeness hidden in general diversity.
Coleridge.
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.
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.
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.
Intemperate wits will spare neither friend nor foe.
L'Estrange.
A wit herself, Amelia weds a wit.
Young.
The five wits, the five senses; also, sometimes, the five qualities or
faculties, common wit, imagination, fantasy, estimation, and memory.
Chaucer. Nares.
But my five wits nor my five senses can Dissuade one foolish heart from
serving thee.
Shak.
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.
Witch (?), n. [Cf. Wick of a lamp.] A cone of paper which is placed in
a vessel of lard or other fat, and used as a taper. [Prov. Eng.]
Witch, n. [OE. wicche, AS. wicce, fem., wicca, masc.; perhaps the same
word as AS. wtiga, wtga, a soothsayer (cf. Wiseacre); cf. Fries. wikke,
a witch, LG. wikken to predict, Icel. vitki a wizard, vitka to
bewitch.]
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.
There was a man in that city whose name was Simon, a witch.
Wyclif (Acts viii. 9).
He can not abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears she's a witch.
Shak.