Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Obsolete A living being; a creature.
- adj. Archaic Valorous; brave.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A person, whether male or female; a human being: as, an unlucky wight.
- n. A preternatural, unearthly, or uncanny creature; an elf, sprite, witch, or the like.
- n. A space of time; a whit; a while.
- Having warlike prowess; valiant; courageous; strong and active; agile; nimble; swift.
- n. A Middle English form of weight.
- n. See wite.
Wiktionary
- n. archaic A living creature, especially a human being.
- n. paganism A being of one of the Nine Worlds of heathen belief, especially a nature spirit, elf or ancestor.
- n. poetic A ghost or other supernatural entity.
- n. fantasy A wraith-like creature.
- adj. Brave, valorous, strong.
- adj. Strong; stout; active.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. obsolete Weight.
- n. obsolete A whit; a bit; a jot.
- n. obsolete A supernatural being.
- n. A human being; a person, either male or female; -- now used chiefly in irony or burlesque, or in humorous language.
- adj. Obs. or Poetic Swift; nimble; agile; strong and active.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an isle and county of southern England in the English Channel
- n. a human being; `wight' is an archaic term
Etymologies
- From Middle English, from Old Norse vígt, neuter of vígr ("skilled in fighting, of age"), cognate with Old English wīġ. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old English wiht; see wekti- in Indo-European roots.Middle English, from Old Norse vīgt, neuter of vīgr, able to fight; see weik-3 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The unfortunate wight is the one who can take many glasses without betraying a sign, who must take numerous glasses in order to get the "kick.”
“Meantime the hump of that awful bump Into the heavens contrived to get To so great a height that they called the wight The man with the minaret.”
INTERNET WIRETAP: The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce (1993 Edition)
“The wight is a stranger, never before did I see him about this quarter or this street.”
“Or you could use Wraith, but the words wight and wraith have identical meanings in fantasy literature.”
Superhero Nation: how to write superhero novels and comic books » Open Writing Forum
“Nor was he ever really himself until he felt the mellow warmth of the vine singing in his blood He was an artist, it is true, always an artist; but somehow, sober the high pitch and lilt went out of his thought-processes and he was prone to be as deadly dull as a British Sunday — not dull as other men are dull, but dull when measured by the sprightly wight that”
“That's about 220 live wight, very big for a PA mountain deer.”
what's the biggest whitetail deer you have ever shot- points and weight if poss. typical or not.
“Yes | No | Report from gman3186 wrote 1 day 48 min ago johnycakes i hunt in isle of wight county”
“Nowadays, I love watching & listening to some open air music festivals (like the Gladstonbury festival, the Isle of wight Festival) ... in the comfort of my home!”
“Yes | No | Report from gman3186 wrote 25 weeks 6 days ago as a matter of fact i hunt in isle of wight county born and raised in windsor virginia which is in isle of wight county im glad someone pointed out the fact about the dogs i dont belong to a club but still shoot the deer they run to me.”
“Chaucer once wrote “He was a very parfait gentil knight, who never yet no villanie ne said unto no manner wight.””
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘wight’.
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Mobying Along
looks like there's not an open Moby Dick list. So now there is.
hypos, Manhattoes, circumambulate, mole, grapnels, bowsprit, asphaltic, mazy, tranced, cataract, ungraspable, judgmatically and 227 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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-ight
light, night, wight, hight, knight, fight, bright, right, fright, bight, eight, might and 174 more...
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phrontistery-w
from phrontistery.info
wack, wadmal, waftage, wafture, wagonette, wagtail, wainage, wainscot, wair, waits, wakerife, waldflute and 282 more...
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Interesting Words
A list of words that I find cool.
décolleté, ineluctably, pantechnicon, ossary, peripeteia, harridan, recidivist, irremediable, suppuration, slaver, loam, umbrage and 15 more...
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Sound Sex
taciturn, deflower, recursive, parapraxis, comitative, atelic, awkward, eccentric, libidinous, astereognosis, aloof, moonglade and 50 more...
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Tolkien's archaisms
sigaldry, moot, kine, fey, eyot, ghylls, gangrel, glede, ilexes, laved, niggard, league and 44 more...
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Moby Dick
Words of interest from the book Moby Dick.
arrant, obstreperously, coffer-dam, farrago, rejoinder, counterpane, hamper, commend, grego, dreadnought, psalmody, expostulation and 85 more...
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Words I like
A list contrived for the sole purpose of storing words I like to include in my writing; words that inspire or carry power for me.
contrite, meadow, sward, ossary, calumny, moribund, necropolis, chthonic, murmur, erstwhile, chime, beryl and 63 more...
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Lillyjames's Words
uncategorized words that I enjoy
replete, unabashed, dauntless, ubiquitous, fanged, blush, flush, murmur, mercurial, dishevelled, decrepit, raven and 146 more...
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The Whiteness of the Whale
Words in Melville's "Moby Dick"
grapnels, spile, pea coffee, farrago, grego, bosky, bombazine, brevet, cenotaph, cupidity, kelson, obliquity and 164 more...
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Stumbled Words
A list of words that I stumbled upon while reading.
penumbra, prolix, propitious, resplendence, sepulchral, Weltschmerz, apparition, brigand, probity, chalice, paroxysm, pallor and 160 more...
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je les adore!
fusillade, foal, celestial, abattoir, byzantium, berlin, casablanca, babylon, balkans, albion, avalon, between the devil... and 471 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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My Treasures
Well everyone's lists are favourites or pets or useful terms, no? These are mine.
mephitic, cagastric, wulm, scaevity, seplasiary, sevidical, sevous, soleated, soloecal, sputcheon, stagma, temerate and 173 more...
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Words I will probably never use
décolleté, pendragon, amerce, viviparous, dragoon, brigand, outlaw, outlawry, lugubrious, boor, contretemps, decrepit and 151 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for wight.
morganscorpion Found with monotonous regularity in Spenser's "Faerie Queene" where it seems to just mean "person" - whether human or faerie. Feb 7, 2009
sionnach Two wongs don't make a wight. Feb 18, 2008
treeseed Also a ghost or spirit that haunts a barrow
barrow wight Feb 18, 2008