Word.ws English Dictionary

mother-wit

mother-wit is the alternative form of mother wit.

Meaning of mother wit

Noun

mother wit (countable and uncountable, plural mother wits)

  1. (uncountable) Inborn intelligence; innate good sense.
    • Kate. Where did you study all this goodly speech?
      Petr. It is extempore, from my mother wit.c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
  2. (countable, obsolete) A person with such intelligence.
    • From iygging vaines of riming mother wits,
      And ſuch conceits as clownage keepes in pay,
      Weele lead you to the ſtately tent of War,
      Where you ſhall heare the Scythian Tamburlaine:
      Threatning the world with high aſtounding tearms
      And ſcourging kingdomes with his conquering ſword.c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...

Questions about mother-wit

What is mother-wit the alternative form of?
Mother-wit is the alternative form of mother wit.

Words near mother-wit in the dictionary

  1. mother-out-law
  2. mother-spot
  3. mother-spots
  4. mother-to-be
  5. mother-tongue
  6. mother-wit
  7. motherable
  8. motherboard
  9. motherboards
  10. motherchucker
  11. motherchuckers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mother-wit (page history and authors); mother wit (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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