transcription, транскрипция: [ wɪt ]
( wits)
1.
Wit is the ability to use words or ideas in an amusing, clever, and imaginative way.
Boulding was known for his biting wit...
N-UNCOUNT
2.
If you describe someone as a wit , you mean that they have the ability to use words or ideas in an amusing, clever, and imaginative way.
Holmes was gregarious, a great wit, a man of wide interests.
N-COUNT
3.
If you say that someone has the wit to do something, you mean that they have the intelligence and understanding to make the right decision or take the right action in a particular situation.
The information is there and waiting to be accessed by anyone with the wit to use it.
= sense
N-SING : the N to-inf
4.
You can refer to your ability to think quickly and cleverly in a difficult situation as your wits .
She has used her wits to progress to the position she holds today.
N-PLURAL : usu poss N
5.
You can use wits in expressions such as frighten someone out of their wits and scare the wits out of someone to emphasize that a person or thing worries or frightens someone very much.
You scared us out of our wits. We heard you had an accident.
N-PLURAL : usu out of poss N [ emphasis ]
6.
If you have your wits about you or keep your wits about you, you are alert and ready to act in a difficult situation.
Travellers need to keep their wits about them.
PHRASE : V inflects
7.
If you say that you are at your wits’ end , you are emphasizing that you are so worried and exhausted by problems or difficulties that you do not know what to do next.
We row a lot and we never have time on our own. I’m at my wit’s end.
PHRASE : usu v-link PHR [ emphasis ]
8.
If you pit your wits against someone, you compete against them in a test of knowledge or intelligence.
He has to pit his wits against an adversary who is cool, clever and cunning.
PHRASE : V inflects , PHR n
9.
To wit is used to indicate that you are about to state or describe something more precisely. ( LITERARY )
He’d like ‘happiness’ to be given a new and more scientifically descriptive label, to wit ‘Major affective disorder, pleasant type’.
= namely
PHRASE : PHR with cl , PHR n