Citations:wight

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search

English citations of wight

Noun: "a living creature, especially a human being."

[edit]
1602 1626 1851
ME « 15th c. 16th c. 17th c. 18th c. 19th c. 20th c. 21st c.
  • circa 1602, William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, act 1, scene 3:
    O base Hungarian wight! wilt thou the spigot wield?
  • 1626, John Milton, On the Death of a Fair Infant Dying of a Cough, verse vi
    Oh say me true if thou wert mortal wight
    And why from us so quickly thou didst take thy flight.
  • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick[1], chapter 14:
    Some gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds there, they don’t grow naturally; [...]
  • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 2:
    “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.”
  • circa 1872, a Knight's tour cryptotour poem, possibly by Howard Staunton, lines 1 and 2:

Adjective: "Brave, valorous, strong."

[edit]
1485
ME « 15th c. 16th c. 17th c. 18th c. 19th c. 20th c. 21st c.
  • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter IX, in Le Morte Darthur, book XVIII (in Middle English):
    :
    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