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Complete Definition of "witan"

English

Etymology
Old English witan#Old English|witan, plural of wita ‘wise man’.

Pronunciation
IPA|/ˈwɪtən/

Noun
en-noun

  1. The Anglo-Saxon national council or witenagemot.

#:*1833: But in estimating the powers of the witan, we must not lose sight of the fact, that the king sometimes assumes a tone of superiority scarcely consistent with its independence. — SA Dunham, Europe in the Middle Ages (Green & Longman, p.48)

  1. The members of such an assembly.

Old English

Etymology 1
Inflected forms.

Pronunciation
IPA|/ˈwitɑn/

Noun
witan

  1. plural of|wita

Etymology 2
From Germanic *witan (present tense *wait-), from Indo-European *u̯oidh₂e, originally a perfect form of *u̯eid- ‘see’. Cognate with Old Frisian wita, Old Saxon witan/unicode|wet|wēt (Dutch weten), Old High German wizzan/weiz (German wissen), Old Norse vita/veit (Swedish veta), Gothic 𐍅𐌹𐍄𐌰𐌽/𐍅𐌰𐌹𐍄. The IE root is also the source of Latin videre, Baltic *waid- (Lithuanian vadinti), Slavic *vēde- (Old Church Slavonic вѣдѣти, Russian ведать).

Pronunciation
IPA|/ˈwitɑn/

Verb
witan (preterite-present: 3 singular present unicode|wat|wāt, 3 singular preterite wisse or wiste, preterite plural wisson or wiston, past participle (ġe)witen)

  1. to know something, to be aware of something

Descendants
English: wit, wot

Etymology 3
From Old English witan, from Germanic *wit-. Cognate with Old Norse víta

Pronunciation
IPA|/wiːtɑn/

Verb
Latinx|wītan(class I strong: ''3 singular present witeþ, past wat/witon, past participle gewiten)

  1. to blame, accuse, reproach

Descendants
English wite

Etymology 4
Unknown.

Pronunciation
IPA|/wi:tan/

Verb
Latinx|wītan (also in the form ġewītan)(class I strong: ''3 singular present witeþ, past wat/witon, past participle gewiten)

  1. to depart

Descendants
English wite

Category:Old English preterite-present verbs
Category:Old English strong verbs

fr:witan
ru:witan
zh:witan

Revision and Credits for"witan"
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