different between white vs wight

English

Alternative forms

• whight, whyte, whyght (obsolete)
• White (race-related)

Etymology

From Middle English whit, hwit, from Old English hw?t, from Proto-West Germanic *hw?t, from Proto-Germanic *hw?taz (whence also West Frisian wyt, Dutch wit, German weiß, Norwegian Bokmål hvit, Norwegian Nynorsk kvit), from Proto-Indo-European *?weydós, a byform of *?weytós (“bright; shine”). Compare Lithuanian švi?sti (“to gleam”), šviesa (“light”), Old Church Slavonic ????? (sv?t?, “light”), ??????? (sv?t?l?, “clear, bright”), Persian ????? (sefid), Avestan ????????????????????????? (spa?ta, “white”), Sanskrit ????? (?vetá, “white, bright”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: w?t, IPA^(key): /wa?t/
• (without the wine–whine merger) enPR: hw?t, IPA^(key): /?a?t/
• Rhymes: -a?t
• Homophones: wight, Wight, wite (accents with the wine-whine merger)

Adjective

white (comparative whiter or more white, superlative whitest or most white)

1. Bright and colourless; reflecting equal quantities of all frequencies of visible light.
   • c. 1878, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Holidays"

     white as the whitest lily on a stream.

   • 1381, quoted in Hans Kurath & Sherman M. Kuhn, eds., Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, ISBN 978-0-472-01044-8, page 1242 (1961):

     dorr??, d?r? adj. & n. […] cook. glazed with a yellow substance; pome(s ~, sopes ~. […] 1381 Pegge Cook. Recipes page 114: For to make Soupys dorry. Nym onyons […] Nym wyn […] toste wyte bred and do yt in dischis, and god Almande mylk.

   Antonyms: black, nonwhite, unwhite

2. (sometimes capitalized) Of or relating to Caucasians, people of European descent with light-coloured skin.
3. (chiefly historical) Designated for use by Caucasians.

4. Relatively light or pale in colour.

5. Pale or pallid, as from fear, illness, etc.
6. (of a person or skin) Lacking coloration (tan) from ultraviolet light; not tanned.

   Synonyms: fair, pale

   Antonym: tanned

7. (of coffee or tea) Containing cream, milk, or creamer.

   Antonym: black

8. (board games, chess) The standard denomination of the playing pieces of a board game deemed to belong to the white set, no matter what the actual colour.

9. Pertaining to an ecclesiastical order whose adherents dress in white habits; Cistercian.
10. Honourable, fair; decent.

    • White as thy fame, and as thy honour clear.

    • 1916, Julia Frankau, Twilight

      He's a fine fellow, this Gabriel Stanton, a white man all through

    • 1953, Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye, Penguin, 2010, p.12:

      ‘We've only met twice and you've been more than white to me both times.’
11. Grey, as from old age; having silvery hair; hoary.
12. (archaic) Characterized by freedom from that which disturbs, and the like; fortunate; happy; favourable.
13. (obsolete) Regarded with especial favour; favourite; darling.

    • Come forth, my white spouse.

    • c. 1626, John Ford, Tis Pity She's a Whore

      I am his white boy, and will not be gulled.

14. (politics) Pertaining to constitutional or anti-revolutionary political parties or movements.
    • 1932, Duff Cooper, Talleyrand, Folio Society, 2010, p.163:

      Aimée de Coigny had always adopted with enthusiasm the political views of her ruling lover and she had thus already held nearly every shade of opinion from red republicanism to white reaction.

15. (of tea) Made from immature leaves and shoots.
16. (typography) Not containing characters; see white space.
17. (typography) Said of a symbol or character outline, not solid, not filled with color. Compare black (“said of a character or symbol filled with color”).

    Compare two Unicode symbols: ? = "WHITE RIGHT POINTING INDEX"; ? = "BLACK RIGHT POINTING INDEX"

18. Characterised by the presence of snow.

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

• Bislama: waet
• Tok Pisin: wait
• ? Japanese: ???? (howaito)
• white fella
  • ? Nyunga: wadjela
• white gin
  • ? Gamilaraay: waatyin
  • ? Ngiyambaa: wadjiin
  • ? Wiradhuri: waajin

Translations

See white/translations § Adjective.

Noun

white (countable and uncountable, plural whites)

1. The color/colour of snow or milk; the colour of light containing equal amounts of all visible wavelengths.
2. A person of European descent with light-coloured skin.
3. Any butterfly of the family Pieridae.
4. (countable and uncountable) White wine.
5. (countable) Any object or substance that is of the color white.
   1. The albumen of bird eggs (egg white).
   2. (anatomy) The sclera, white of the eye.
   3. (sports, billiards, snooker, pool) The cue ball in cue games.
   4. (slang, US) Cocaine
   5. The snow- or ice-covered "green" in snow golf.
   6. A white pigment.

      Venice white

6. (archery) The central part of the butt, which was formerly painted white; the centre of a mark at which a missile is shot.
7. The enclosed part of a letter of the alphabet, especially when handwritten.
   • 1594, Hugh Plat, The Jewell House of Art and Nature, London, Chapter 38, p. 42,^[3]

     Also it giueth a great grace to your writing, if the whites of certeine letters bee made of one equall bignesse with the o. supposing the same were all round, as the white of the b. of the a. p. y. v. w. x. q. d. g. and s.

   • 1677, Hannah Woolley, The Compleat Servant-Maid, London: T. Passinger, p. 18,^[4]

     […] the a. b. d. g. o. p. q. &c. […] must be made with equal whites.

   • 1931, Margery Allingham, Police at the Funeral, Penguin, 1939, Chapter 14, p. 157,^[5]

     She copied the whole alphabet like that, as though only the inside whites of the letters registered on her mind.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

white (third-person singular simple present whites, present participle whiting, simple past and past participle whited)

1. (transitive) To make white; to whiten; to bleach.

   • whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of […] uncleanness

   • so as no fuller on earth can white them

Derived terms

• white out

See also

• leucite
• leukoma
• leukosis
• Sauvignon blanc
• Svetambara
• terra alba

Further reading

• white on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Race on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• white on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons

Anagrams

• withe

Middle English

Adjective

white

1. inflection of whit:
   1. weak singular
   2. strong/weak plural
2. Alternative form of whit

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: w?t, IPA^(key): /wa?t/
• Rhymes: -a?t
• Homophones: wite, white (in accents with the wine-whine merger)

Etymology 1

From Middle English wight, wi?t, from Old English wiht (“wight, person, creature, being, whit, thing, something, anything”), from Proto-Germanic *wihtiz (“essence, object”), from Proto-Indo-European *wekti- (“cause, sake, thing”), from *wek?- (“to say, tell”). Cognate with Scots wicht (“creature, being, human”), Dutch wicht (“child, baby”), German Low German Wicht (“girl; wight”), German Wicht (“wretch, wight, little creature, scoundrel”), Norwegian Bokmål vette (“underground creature, gnome”), Swedish vätte (“underground creature, gnome”), Icelandic vættur (“imp, elf”). Doublet of whit.

Noun

wight (plural wights)

1. (archaic) A living creature, especially a human being.
   • Template:RQ:Shakespeare Merry Wives of Windsor
   • 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.

   • c. 1872, a Knight's tour cryptotour poem, possibly by Howard Staunton, lines 1 and 2:

     "The man that hath no love of chess/Is truth to say a sorry wight."

   • 1885, Richard F. Burton, The Supplemental Nights to the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 532:

     […] Alaeddin ate and drank and was cheered and after he had rested and had recovered spirits he cried, "Ah, O my mother, I have a sore grievance against thee for leaving me to that accursed wight who strave to compass my destruction and designed to take my life. Know that I beheld Death with mine own eyes at the hand of this damned wretch, whom thou didst certify to be my uncle; […]

2. (paganism) A being of one of the Nine Worlds of Heathen belief, especially a nature spirit, elf or ancestor.
3. (poetic) A ghost, deity or other supernatural entity.
   • 1789, William Blake, A Dream, lines 14-16:

     But I saw a glow-worm near, / Who replied: ‘What wailing wight / Calls the watchman of the night?

   • 1869, William Morris and Eiríkr Magnússon (translators), Grettis Saga: The Story of Grettir the Strong, F. S. Ellis, page 49:

     Everything in their way was kicked out of place, the barrow-wight setting on with hideous eagerness; Grettir gave back before him for a long time, till at last it came to this, that he saw it would not do to hoard his strength any more; now neither spared the other, and they were brought to where the horse-bones were, and thereabout they wrestled long.

4. (fantasy) A wraith-like creature.

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English wight, from Old Norse vígt, neuter of vígr (“skilled in fighting, of age”), from Proto-Germanic *w?gaz (“fighting”), from Proto-Indo-European *weyk- (“to fight”). Cognate with Old English w??.

Adjective

wight

1. (archaic, except in dialects) Brave, valorous, strong.
2. (Britain dialectal, obsolete) Strong; stout; active.

See also

• Isle of Wight

References

• “wight” in the Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, 1974 edition.

Middle English

Etymology 1

From Old English wiht

Alternative forms

• wighte, wygh?t, wi?t, wi?te, whi?t, whytt, whighte, wyght, why?t, wyt, wiht, wihht, whi?t, wei?tt, wy?t, wy?te, wyhte, wyte, wicht

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wixt/, /?ixt/
• Rhymes: -ixt

Noun

wight (plural wightes or wighten)

1. A creature, a being.
2. A person, a human being.
   • 1368-1372, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Book of the Duchess, line 579:

     "Worste of alle wightes."

   • 1379-1380, Geoffrey Chaucer, The House of Fame, line 1830-1831:

     "We ben shrewes, every wight,

     And han delyt in wikkednes."

3. A demon, monster
4. A small amount (of a quantity, length, distance or time); a whit.

Descendants

• English: wight, whit
• Scots: wicht

References

• “wight, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-04.

Etymology 2

From Old Norse vígt. See vígr (“ready to fight”).

Alternative forms

• wihte, wict, wi?ht, wy?te, wyght, why?t, wy?t, white, vight, wi?hte, weight, vit

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wixt/, /wikt/

Adjective

wight (comparative wighter, superlative wightest)

1. brave, bold
2. powerful, strong, vigorous
3. quick, speedy

Descendants

• English: wight (obsolete or dialectal)

References

• “wight, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-04.

Adverb

wight

1. immediately
2. vigorously

References

• “wight, adv.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-04.