Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adverb Certainly; assuredly.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Certainly; surely; truly; to wit.
  • noun Certainty: used in the adverbial phrases mid iwisse, or to iwisse, for certain, certainly.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adverb obsolete Indeed; truly. See ywis.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb poetic, archaic Certainly, surely, indeed.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English gewis, certain; see weid- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English iwis, ywis ("certain, sure"), from Old English ġewiss ("certain, sure"), from Proto-Germanic *gawissaz (“known, certain, sure”), from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“to know”). Cognate with Dutch gewis ("sure"), German gewiss ("certain"), Danish vis ("sure"). More at wit, wis.

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Examples

Comments

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  • iwis = surely amen. is it an adverb?

    December 28, 2006