wisp
/wɪsp/
wisp noun: a small bundle, as of straw or other like substance; a twisted handful of something; any slender, flexible structure or group.
Noun (1)
wisp (countable and uncountable, plural wisps)
- A small bundle, as of straw or other like substance; a twisted handful of something; any slender, flexible structure or group.
- A wisp of hair escaped her barrette and whipped wildly in the wind.
- a wisp of a child
- A small, thin line of cloud, smoke, or steam.
- A wisp of smoke rose from the candle for a few moments after he blew it out.
- Across the country a wisp of smoke showed, then gunyahs, and in a moment more we were right in the bush camp.1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 83
- A whisk, or small broom.
- A will o' the wisp, or ignis fatuus.
- the wisp that flickers where no foot can tread1847, Alfred Tennyson, “(please specify the page number, or |part=Prologue, I to VII, or conclusion)”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC
- An immeasurable, indefinable essence of life; soul.
- “She would get nothing from him, she saw, resentfully. Then some angel of grace lent her a few wisps, which she grasped.1982, Kamala Markandaya, Shalimar, Harper & Row, →ISBN, page 154
- Apparently it had been too much; for his sleep, though deep as death itself, was not dreamless this time, but threaded with ghostly wisps of dreams.1987, John E. Woods, Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer=Das Parfum, Pocket Books, page 163
- A flock of snipe.
- They shift their quarters in the early part of the season very suddenly, and if a man hears of a wisp of snipe in any particular place, he must be off at once.1861, Horace William Wheelwright, Bush Wanderings of a Naturalist, page 99
- A flock of snipe is given the collective name of a "wisp", perhaps due to its rapid twisting and turning before the birds drop down again.1988, Michael Cady, Rob Hume, editors, The Complete Book of British Birds, page 158
- A disease affecting the feet of cattle.
Verb
wisp (third-person singular simple present wisps, present participle wisping, simple past and past participle wisped)
- To brush or dress, as with a wisp.
- The very same head of hair, wisp'd, and matted together, would make the most disagreeable figure.1753, William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty
- To rumple.
- To produce a wisp, as of smoke.
- To Temple, sitting in the cottonseed-hulls and the corn-cobs, the sound was no louder than the striking of a match: a short, minor sound shutting down the scene, the instant, with a profound finality, completely isolating it, and she sat there, her legs straight before her, her hands limp and...1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Library of America, published 1985, page 70
- To emit in wisps.
- It looked warm and rosy-bright inside, with a little chimney wisping smoke, little windows glowing.2011, Iain Lawrence, The Winter Pony, page 219
Noun (2) capitalized: WISP
WISP (plural WISPs)
- Acronym of wireless internet service provider.
wisp meaning in Arabic
wisp in Arabic
- a small bundle, as of straw or other like substance
- خُصْلَة ḵuṣla, حُزْمَة ḥuzma, خَيْط ḵayṭ
Examples of wisp in a sentence
- He was a wisp of spirit — all his substance, the meat of his being, the coat of flesh that had always slowed him, had long since slipped away.2006, Paul Theroux, Blinding Light: A Novel, Mariner Book, →ISBN, page 84:
- It was like seeing wisps of spirits trailing IVs, shrouded bodies on the precipice of a low-key volcano.2011, Ken Bruen, Headstone, Mysterious Press, →ISBN, page 189:
- It steamed slightly, where the sun touched it, wisps of ghosts rising up from the ground.2017, Cameron Dokey, Belle, Simon Pulse, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division, →ISBN, page 134:
- Wisps of snipe and badlings of duck sprang into the air1921 October, Samuel Scoville Jr., “High Sky”, in Mary Mapes Dodge, editor, St. Nicholas, volume XLVIII, page 1062:
Forms of wisp
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | wisps |
| plural | WISPs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | wisps |
| present participle | wisping |
| past participle | wisped |
| past | wisped |
Origin of wisp
From Middle English wispe, wyspe, wips, wipse, perhaps from an unrecorded Old English *wisp, *wips. Cognate with West Frisian wisp, Dutch wisp (“bundle of hay or straw”), Norwegian bokmål/Swedish/Bornholm Danish visp (“handful or bundle of grass, hay, etc.”). Akin also to Middle Dutch/Middle Low German wispel (“measure of grain”).
Words formed from wisp
Phrases with wisp
Words that rhyme with wisp
Questions about wisp
- What does wisp mean?
- Wisp means a small bundle, as of straw or other like substance; a twisted handful of something; any slender, flexible structure or group.
- What is wisp in Arabic?
- Wisp in Arabic is خُصْلَة (ḵuṣla), حُزْمَة (ḥuzma), خَيْط (ḵayṭ). See Wisp meaning in Arabic.
- How do you use wisp in a sentence?
- He was a wisp of spirit — all his substance, the meat of his being, the coat of flesh that had always slowed him, had long since slipped away.
- What part of speech is wisp?
- Wisp can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce wisp?
- Wisp is pronounced /wɪsp/.
- What is the plural of wisp?
- The plural of wisp is wisps.
Words near wisp in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wisp (page history and authors); WISP (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-wisp.ogg.
Cite this entry: “wisp.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wisp. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.