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wight

Pronunciation: /waɪt/

The English word “wight” has 6 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A living creature, especially a human being.
  2. A supernatural being, often used in compounds such as the land-vættr which guard the land, especially the four guardians of Iceland.
  3. A ghost, deity or other supernatural entity.
  4. A wraith-like creature.

adjective

  1. Brave, valorous, strong.
  2. Strong; stout; active.

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…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.