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WITS
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The basic human power of intelligent thought and perception
Example:
he still had all his marbles and was in full possession of a lively mind
Synonyms:
marbles; wits
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("wits" is a kind of...):
intelligence (the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience)
Context examples:
There he lay in the hall, and we were at our wits’ end what to do.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Old Ebbits now and again pulled his tangled wits together, and hints and sparkles of intelligence came and went in his eyes.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
It appears they were at their wits' end what to do, the stores being so low that we must have been starved into surrender long before help came.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
In short, I behaved myself so unaccountably, that they were all of the captain’s opinion when he first saw me, and concluded I had lost my wits.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
So saying he set out and travelled till he came to a hill, where three giants were sharing their father’s goods; and as they saw him pass they cried out and said, Little men have sharp wits; he shall part the goods between us.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
Tell him what a dreadful state I am in, that I am frighted out of my wits—and have such tremblings, such flutterings, all over me—such spasms in my side and pains in my head, and such beatings at heart, that I can get no rest by night nor by day.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
It’s worth quite a little fortune to any man who gets it, and I understand that there are more vacancies than there are men, so that the trustees are at their wits’ end what to do with the money.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Hannah scolded, Meg cried, and Jo was at her wits' end, till she decided to take things into her own hands.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
It’s my first big chance, and I am at my wits’ end.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“Unless my wits is gone a bahd's neezing”—by which Mr. Peggotty meant to say, bird's-nesting—“this morning, 'tis along of me as you're a-going to quit us?”
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
