weet
English edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English weten, a Middle English variant of witen (“to know”). More at wit.
Pronunciation edit
Verb edit
weet (third-person singular simple present weets, present participle weeting, simple past and past participle weeted)
- (intransitive, archaic) To know.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, stanza 25, page 87:
- But Glauce, ſeeing all that chaunced there, / VVell vveeting hovv their errour to aſſoyle, / Full glad of ſo good end, to them drevv nere, / And her ſalevved vvith ſeemly belaccoyle, / Ioyous to ſee her ſafe after long toyle.
- c. 1606–1607, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii], lines 37–41:
- The nobleness of life / Is to do thus, when such a mutual pair / And such a twain can do ’t, in which I bind, / On pain of punishment, the world to weet / We stand up peerless.
- 1885–1888, Richard F[rancis] Burton, transl. and editor, “Night 13”, in A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, now Entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night […], Shammar edition, volume (please specify the volume), [London]: […] Burton Club […], →OCLC:
- I wept for myself, but resigned my soul to the tyranny of Time and Circumstance, well weeting that Fortune is fair and constant to no man.
See also edit
Anagrams edit
Afrikaans edit
Alternative forms edit
- wiet (Cape Afrikaans)
Etymology edit
From Dutch weten (“to know”), from Middle Dutch weten, from Old Dutch witan, from Proto-Germanic *witaną, from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“see, know”). Related to English wit.
Pronunciation edit
Verb edit
weet (present weet, present participle wetende, past wis, past participle geweet)
Dutch edit
Pronunciation edit
Etymology 1 edit
From Middle Dutch wete. See the verb weten (“to know”).
Noun edit
weet f (plural weten, diminutive weetje n)
Etymology 2 edit
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
Verb edit
weet
- inflection of weten:
- singular past indicative of wijten
Anagrams edit
Limburgish edit
Etymology edit
From Old Dutch *wit, from Proto-Germanic *wet, *wit. A rare example of the old dual pronoun surviving into a modern West Germanic language.
Pronunciation edit
Pronoun edit
weet
- nominative dual of ich
Luxembourgish edit
Verb edit
weet
Middle Dutch edit
Verb edit
wêet
West Frisian edit
Etymology edit
From Old Frisian hwēte, wēt, from Proto-West Germanic *hwaitī.
Noun edit
weet c (plural weten)
Further reading edit
- “weet (I)”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011