wight
noun
- legendary creature
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /waɪt/
adj
Etymology: From Middle English wight, from Old Norse vígt, neuter of vígr (“skilled in fighting, of age”), from Proto-Germanic *wīgaz (“fighting”), from Proto-Indo-European *weyk- (“to fight”). Cognate with Old English wīġ.
- Brave, valorous, strong.
“I haue two sones that were but late made knyghtes / and the eldest hyghte sir Tirre /[…]/ and my yongest sone hyght Lauayne / and yf hit please yow / he shalle ryde with yow vnto that Iustes / and he is of his age x stronge and wyght”
- Strong; stout; active.
“Then spake Much the milner son, / Ever more well him betide! / ‘Take twelve of thy wight yeomen, / Well weapon’d by thy side. / Such one would thyselfë slon, / That twelve dare not abide.’”
“Ye do you to my father's stable, / Where steeds do stand baith wight and able; / Strike ane o' them upo' the back, / The swiftest will gie his head a wap.”
name
Etymology: Scottish and English surname, from the noun wight.
- A surname.
noun
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 Wicht (“wretch, wight, little creature, scoundrel”), Danish vætte (“underground creature, gnome”), Norwegian Bokmål vette (“underground creature, gnome”), Swedish vätte (“underground creature, gnome”), Icelandic vættur (“imp, elf”). Doublet of whit.
- A living creature, especially a human being.
“O bace gongarian wight, wilt thou the ſpicket willd?”
“Oh ſay me true if thou wert mortal wight And why from us ſo quickly thou didſt take thy flight.”
- A supernatural being, often used in compounds such as the land-vættr which guard the land, especially the four guardians of Iceland.
- A ghost, deity or other supernatural entity.
“But I saw a glow-worm near, / Who replied: ‘What wailing wight / Calls the watchman of the night?”
““In judging of that tempestuous wind called Euroclydon,” says an old writer—of whose works I possess the only copy extant—“it maketh a marvellous difference, whether thou lookest out at it from a glass window where the frost is all on the outside, or whether thou observest it from that sashless window, where the frost is on both sides, and of which the wight Death is the only glazier.””
- A wraith-like creature.