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wit

Pronunciation: /ʋɪt/

“wit” is a Dutch word. Its 10 meanings in English:

adjective

  1. white
  2. legally obtained by having paid the appropriate taxes
  3. having a white skin colour, light-skinned (see usage note)
  4. having a relatively light skin colour
  5. clear-lighted, not dark at all

noun

  1. white (color)
  2. (short for doelwit (“goal, target, the white in a bullseye”))
  3. cocaine
  4. ability to think and reason
  5. knowledge

Etymology

From Middle Dutch wit, from Old Dutch *wit, from Proto-West Germanic *hwīt, from Proto-Germanic *hwittaz. The geminate is unexpected as the usual Proto-Germanic form is *hwītaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱweytos (“shine; bright”). The geminate is sometimes explained as being the result of Kluge's law, thus from a pre-Germanic *kweyd-nos.

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