Wiht

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic term for a living creature or a human being, used in older English writing
2. A old-fashioned word meaning a being of any kind, particularly a person or living thing
3. Used in early English literature to refer to a creature, individual or living being

Etymology: Old English "wiht" meant a living being, creature, or person, and in the earliest texts it could even mean a thing or a bit of something. Its ancestry is ancient and traceable: it belongs to the same Germanic family as Old Norse "vaettr" (a supernatural spirit or being) and Old High German "wiht," which share the sense of a creature or thing. Scholars generally connect these to a Proto-Germanic form, but the deeper origin is uncertain, so it is best to take the Germanic chain as the firm ground. The word's most famous afterlife is hidden in plain sight. Its meaning narrowed in Middle English, and it survived mainly in phrases and fixed expressions, such as "no wight" or "every wight," where "wight" simply meant "person" or "creature." Its main modern echo is the word "wight" in older poetry and fantasy, where it has been revived to suggest a ghostly or undead being, a sense that the original Old English word never had in quite that form.

Synonyms: creature, being, thing