different between wont vs accustomed

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /w??nt/, /w?nt/
• (General American) enPR: w?nt, wônt, w?nt, w?nt, IPA^(key): /w?nt/, /w?nt/, /wo?nt/, /w?nt/
• Rhymes: -??nt
• Homophone: want (some pronunciations)
• Homophone: won't (some pronunciations)

Etymology 1

Origin uncertain; apparently a conflation of wone (“custom, habit, practice”) and wont (participle adjective, below). Compare German Low German Gewohnte (“custom, habit”) and Dutch gewoonte. Likely related to wone, wonder, wean, and win, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wenh?- (“to wish for, strive for, pursue; to succeed, win”); more there.

(Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?)

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Noun

wont (usually uncountable, plural wonts)

1. (archaic) One's habitual way of doing things; custom, habit, practice.
   • 2001, Orhan Pamuk; Erda? M. Göknar, transl., “I am Called Black”, in My Name Is Red, London: Faber and Faber, ?ISBN; paperback edition, London: Faber and Faber, 2002, ?ISBN, page 62:

     With a simple-minded desire, and to rid my mind of this irrepressible urge, I retired to a corner of the room, as was my wont, but after a while I realized I couldn't jack off—proof well enough that I'd fallen in love again after twelve years!

Translations

See also

• meo more

Etymology 2

From Middle English wont, iwoned, from Old English ?ewunod, past participle of ?ewunian. The verb is derived from the adjective.

Adjective

wont (not comparable)

1. Accustomed or used (to or with a thing), accustomed or apt (to do something).
   • c. 1580, Edmund Spenser, “The Teares of the Mvses[: Thalia]”, in Complaints: Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. VVhereof the Next Page Maketh Mention, London: Imprinted for VVilliam Ponsonbie, dwelling in Paules Churchyard at the signe of the Bishops head, published 1591, ?OCLC; republished in “The Teares of the Mvses[: Thalia]”, in The Faerie Qveen: The Shepheards Calendar: Together with the Other Works of England's Arch-Pöet, Edm. Spenser: Collected into One Volume, and Carefully Corrected, London: Printed by H[umphrey] L[ownes] for Mathew Lownes, 1617, ?OCLC:

     What be the ?weet delights of learning a trea?ure, / That wont with Comick ?ock to beautify / The painted Theaters, and fill with plea?ure / The li?tners eyes, and eares with melodie; […]

Derived terms

• unwont
• use and wont
• wontly

Translations

See also

• prone to
• used to

Verb

wont (third-person singular simple present wonts, present participle wonting, simple past and past participle wonted)

1. (transitive, archaic) To make (someone) used to; to accustom.
2. (intransitive, archaic) To be accustomed (to something), to be in the habit (of doing something).
   • 1751, [Thomas Gray], An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church-yard, London: Printed for R[obert] Dodsley in Pall-Mall; and sold by M[ary] Cooper in Pater-noster-Row, ?OCLC; republished as “An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard”, in A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes. By Several Hands, volume IV, 2nd edition, London: Printed by J. Hughs, for R[obert] and J[ames] Dodsley, at Tully's-Head in Pall-Mall, 1758, ?OCLC, page 5:

     On ?ome fond brea?t the parting ?oul relies, / Some pious drops the clo?ing eye requires; / Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, / Ev'n in our A?hes live their wonted Fires.

Translations

Anagrams

• Town, nowt, town

Middle English

Alternative forms

• wonte, wontt, woont

Etymology

From Old English wand, wond, from Proto-Germanic *wanduz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /w?nt/, /w??nt/

Noun

wont (plural wontes)

1. mole (Talpa europea)

   Synonyms: moldewarpe, molle

Descendants

• English: want (dialectal)
• Scots: want

References

• “wont(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

English

Etymology

accustom +? -ed

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?.?k?s.t?md/
• Hyphenation: ac?cus?tomed

Adjective

accustomed (comparative more accustomed, superlative most accustomed)

1. (of a person) Familiar with something through repeated experience; adapted to existing conditions.

   accustomed to walking long distances

   accustomed to cold

   • 1484, William Caxton (translator), The Book of the Subtyl Historyes and Fables of Esope, “The v fable is of the Foxe and of the busshe,”^[1]

     And ther fore men ought not to helpe them whiche ben acustomed to doo euylle

   • 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, Oxford: Henry Cripps, Partition 1, Section 2, Member 2, Subsection 3, p. 99,^[2]

     Such things as we haue beene long accustomed to, though they be evill in their owne nature; yet they are lesse offensiue.

   • 1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, London: T. Egerton, Volume III, Chapter 14,^[3]

     “Miss Bennet, do you know who I am? I have not been accustomed to such language as this.”

   • 1904, Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Missing Three-Quarter” in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, New York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1905, p. 294,^[4]

     Young Overton’s face assumed the bothered look of the man who is more accustomed to using his muscles than his wits […]

   • 1920, F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, New York: Scribner, Book One, Chapter 2, p. 64,^[5]

     None of the Victorian mothers—and most of the mothers were Victorian—had any idea how casually their daughters were accustomed to be kissed.

2. (of a thing, condition, activity, etc.) Familiar through use; usual; customary.
   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Scene 5,^[6]

     It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands: I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Dublin: John Smith, Volume 1, Book 4, Chapter 9, p. 170,^[7]

     Molly had no sooner apparelled herself in her accustomed Rags, than her Sisters began to fall violently upon her […]

   • 1812, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto 2, Stanza 72, in The Poetical Works of Lord Byron, Boston: Cummings & Hilliard, 1814, Volume I, p. 249,^[8]

     Who now shall lead thy scatter’d children forth,

     And long-accustom’d bondage uncreate?

   • 1912, Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali, London: The India Society, Section 63, p. 37,^[9]

     I am uneasy at heart when I have to leave my accustomed shelter; I forget that there abides the old in the new, and that there also thou abidest.

3. (obsolete) Frequented by customers.
   • 1778, Tobias Smollett (translator), The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane by Alain-René Lesage, London: S. Crowder et al., Volume I, Chapter 7, p. 148,^[10]

     There I got a place on the same terms as at Segovia, in a well accustomed shop, much frequented on account of the neighbourhood of the church of Santa Cruz, and the Prince’s theatre […]

   • 1817, Seth William Stevenson^[11], Journal of a Tour through Part of France, Flanders, and Holland, Norwich: for the author, Chapter 21, p. 283,^[12]

     The pompous hotel is a lone cottage of very mean appearance, on the road side, and I will be sworn, was but an ill-accustomed Inn, until those renowned Generals justly gave it a licence.

Usage notes

When referring to a person, accustomed is only used predicatively; when referring to a thing, it is only used attributively. The use of the infinitive following accustomed (e.g. accustomed to do) is obsolete; in contemporary English, the gerund is used in this context (e.g. accustomed to doing).

Synonyms

• (familiar through repeated experience): habituated, inured, used to, wonted

Translations

Verb

accustomed

1. simple past tense and past participle of accustom