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Origin and history of whit

whit(n.)

"smallest particle," mid-15c., from na whit "no amount" (c. 1200), from Old English nan wiht, from wiht "amount; something" (see wight).

also from mid-15c.

Entries linking to whit

wight(n.)

Old English wiht "living being male or female, person; something, anything;" from Proto-Germanic *wihti-. This is reconstructed in Watkins to be from PIE *wekti- "thing, creature" (source also of Old Church Slavonic vešti "a thing"). Boutkan gives it no IE etymology. Also in Old English, "unnatural or uncanny creature."

A doublet, by phonetic change, of whit, it also survives in aught (n.1), naught, not. Germanic cognates include Old Saxon wiht "thing, demon," Dutch wicht "a little child," Old High German wiht "thing, creature, demon," German Wicht "creature, little child," Old Norse vettr "thing, creature," Swedish vätte "spirit of the earth, gnome," Gothic waihts "something")

Unrelated to the Isle of Wight, which is from Latin Vectis (c. 150), originally Celtic, possibly meaning "place of the division."

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    Trends of whit

    adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.

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    shred
    Middle English shrede "scrap or fragment; strip hanging from a garment," from Old English screade "piece cut off, cutting, scrap," from Proto-Germanic *skraudōn- (source also of Old Frisian skred "a cutting, clipping," Middle Dutch schroode "shred," Middle Low German schrot "piec
    iota
    "very small amount," 1630s, figurative use of iota, ninth and smallest letter in the Greek alphabet (corresponding to Latin -i-). Its use in this sense is after Matthew v.18 (see jot (n.), which is the earlier form of the name in English), but iota in classical Greek also was pro
    tittle
    "small stroke or point in writing," late 14c. (Wycliffe, in Matthew v.18), translating Latin apex in Late Latin sense of "accent mark over a vowel," which itself translates Greek keraia (literally "a little horn"), used by the Greek grammarians of the accents and diacritical poin
    aught
    "something, anything," late 12c., from Old English awiht "aught, anything, something," literally "e'er a whit," from a- "...
    snow-white
    "white as snow, very white," Middle English snou-whit, from Old English snawhwit (glossing Latin niveus), from snow (n.)...
    naught
    "nothing" (late 12c.), from Old English nawiht "nothing," literally "no whit," from na "no" (from PIE root *ne- "not") +...
    ember-days
    The Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after the first Sunday in Lent, Whit-Sunday, Sept. 14, and Dec. 13, set aside for prayer...
    bohemian
    "a gypsy of society; person (especially an artist) who lives a free and somewhat dissipated life, despising conventionalities and having little regard for social standards," 1848, from a transferred sense of French bohemién "a Bohemian; a Gypsy," from the country name (see Bohemi
    pitch
    "thick, tenacious, resinous substance obtained from tar or turpentine, wood tar," late 12c., pich, piche, from Old English pic "pitch," from a Germanic borrowing (compare Old Saxon and Old Frisian pik, Middle Dutch pik, Dutch pek, Old High German pek, German Pech, Old Norse bik)
    scapegoat
    1530, "goat sent into the wilderness on the Day of Atonement as a symbolic bearer of the sins of the people," coined by Tyndale from scape, a shortening of escape (see scape (v.)) + goat; the whole word translating Latin caper emissarius, itself a translation in Vulgate of Hebrew

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