wight
/waɪt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.23 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A supernatural being, often used in compounds such as the land-vættr which guard the land, especially the four guardians of Iceland.
noun
A ghost, deity or other supernatural entity.
noun
A wraith-like creature.
name
The Isle of Wight.
name
A sea area comprising part of the English Channel, from the southern English coast down to Normandy.
Example Sentences
- "O bace gongarian wight, wilt thou the ſpicket willd?"
- "Oh ſay me true if thou wert mortal wight And why from us ſo quickly thou didſt take thy flight."
- "But woe betide the wandering wight, / That treads its circle in the night."
- "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."
- "Some gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds there, they don’t grow naturally; [...]"
- ""Who is the miserable little wight?" he asked. He was told her name and dignity."
Etymology
From Middle English wight, wiȝt, from Old English wiht (“thing, creature”), from Proto-West Germanic *wihti, from Proto-Germanic *wihtiz (“thing, creature”, literally “being”), from Proto-Indo-European *wekti- (“cause, sake, thing”), from *wekʷ- (“to say, tell”). Cognate with Scots wicht (“creature, being, human”), Dutch wicht (“child, baby, girl”), German Low German Wicht (“girl; wight”), German Wicht (“wretch, wight, little creature, scoundrel”), Danish vætte (“underground creature, gnome”), Norwegian Bokmål vette (“underground creature, gnome”), Swedish vätte (“underground creature, gnome”), Icelandic vættur (“imp, elf”). Doublet of whit.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *wekʷ-, wight, wiht, *wihti, *wihtiz, *wekti-
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
housewight
landwight
seawight
Phrases
barrow-wight
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