Wit is a form of intellectual humour, and a wit is someone skilled in making witty remarks. Forms of wit include the quip and repartee.
Forms of wit
As in the wit of Parker's set, the
Algonquin Round Table, witty remarks may be intentionally cruel (as in many
epigrams), and perhaps more
ingenious than funny.
A quip is an observation or saying that has some wit but perhaps descends into sarcasm, or otherwise is short of point; a witticism also suggests the diminutive. Repartee is the wit of the quick answer and capping comment: the snappy comeback and neat retort. (Wilde: "I wish I'd said that." Whistler: "You will, Oscar, you will".)
The French language distinguishes between the , a witty remark actually produced, and the , the thing one should have said that typically comes to mind too late to be of any use.
Wit in poetry
Wit in
poetry is characteristic of
metaphysical poetry as a style, and was prevalent in the time of English playwright
Shakespeare, who admonished pretension with the phrase "Better a witty fool than a foolish wit". It may combine
word play with conceptual thinking, as a kind of verbal display requiring attention, without intending to be laugh-aloud funny; in fact wit can be a thin disguise for more poignant feelings that are being versified. English poet
John Donne is the representative of this style of poetry.
Further meanings
More generally, one's wits are one's intellectual powers of all types. Native wit — meaning the wits with which one is born — is closely synonymous with
common sense. To live by one's wits is to be an
opportunist, but not always of the scrupulous kind. To have one's wits about one is to be alert and capable of quick
reasoning. To be at the end of one's wits is to be immensely frustrated.
See also
Hartford Wits
New Oxford Wits
Oxford Wits
Bibliography
D. W. Jefferson, "Tristram Shandy and the Tradition of Learned Wit" in Essays in Criticism, 1(1951), 225-48
References
Category:Humor
Category:Word play
![The Quip - 1218 [live]](http://web.archive.org./web/20110108221231im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/AnTIAwqI3_A/2.jpg "The Quip - 1218 [live]")
![It took thirteen years to complete the Empire State Plaza;[81] The Egg stands unfinished in this photo ca. 1976.](http://web.archive.org./web/20110108221231im_/http://cdn.wn.com/pd/58/c9/beee946d916159811895536db3f2_grande.jpg "It took thirteen years to complete the Empire State Plaza;[81] The Egg stands unfinished in this photo ca. 1976.")
![It took thirteen years to complete the Empire State Plaza;[81] The Egg stands unfinished in this photo ca. 1976.](http://web.archive.org./web/20110108221231im_/http://cdn.wn.com/pd/58/c9/beee946d916159811895536db3f2_thumb.jpg "It took thirteen years to complete the Empire State Plaza;[81] The Egg stands unfinished in this photo ca. 1976.")
