wit

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Cleverness

Nouns

1. wit, wittiness; Atticism; salt; sense of humor, funny bone, esprit, point, fancy, whim, humor, drollery, pleasantry; comedy; jocularity, jocosity, jocoseness; levity, facetiousness; waggery, waggishness, quipster-ing; comicality; laugh track. Informal, crazy bone.

2. (broad humor) farce, buffoonery, clowning, fooling, tomfoolery; harlequinade; broad farce, broad humor, slapstick; fun; smartness, banter, badinage, retort, repartee, riposte; ridicule; horseplay. Slang, monkey business, barrel of laughs.

3. (joke) witticism, jest, joke, conceit, quip, one-liner, quirk, quiddity, pleasantry; sally, wheeze; flash of wit, scintillation; mot, bon mot, smart saying, epigram; dry wit, cream of the jest. Informal, hoot. Slang, comeback, gag, [wise]crack, running gag, zinger.

4. wordplay, play on words, pun, punning, double entendre, equivocation; conundrum, riddle (see secret); trifling. Slang, chestnut.

5. wit, wag; joker, jester, buffoon; comedian, comic, humorist, punster; merry-andrew, fool; practical joker, fun maker. Informal, gagman. Slang, wisecracker.

Verbs

1. be witty, joke, jest; crack a joke; pun; make fun of, make sport of; retort; banter. Informal, kid. Slang, wisecrack, come back at.

2. be funny or amusing. Informal, crack one up, have people rolling in the aisles.

Adjectives — witty, Attic, quick-witted, nimble-witted; smart, jocular, jocose, droll, funny, waggish, facetious, whimsical, humorous; playful, merry, pleasant, sprightly, sparkling, epigrammatic, pointed, comic.

Adverbs — jokingly, jestingly, etc.; in jest, in sport, in play; in fun; not seriously, with tongue in cheek.

Quotations — We are not amused (Queen Victoria), Everything is funny as long as it is happening to Somebody Else (Will Rogers), Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquillity (James Thurber), Nothing is so impenetrable as laughter in a language you don't understand (William Golding), Brevity is the soul of wit (Shakespeare), Wit is the epitaph of an emotion (Friedrich Nietzsche), Impropriety is the soul of wit (W. Somerset Maugham), Better a witty fool than a foolish wit (Shakespeare), Wit makes its own welcome and levels all distinctions (Emerson), The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself (James Thurber).

Antonyms, see weariness.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

1. [Clever humor]

Syn. humor, wittiness, smartness, whimsicality, jocularity, pleasantry, drollery, waggery, banter, burlesque; see also humor 1 .

2. [An example of wit, sense 1]

Syn. satire, irony, badinage, witticism, sally, whimsy, repartee, bon mot, joke, aphorism, jest, quip, epigram, pun, wisecrack*, gag*.

3. [One who possesses wit, sense 1]

Syn. humorist, punster, epigrammatist, comedian, banterer, clever fellow, life of the party, wag, wisecracker*, wise guy*.

• at one's wits' end,

Syn. downhearted, desperate, at a loss, helpless; see hopeless 2 , troubled 1 .

• have or [m1]• keep one's wits about one,

Syn. be ready, be alert, take precautions, be on one's guard, keep one's cool*; see also watch out 2 .

• live by one's wits,

Syn. use sharp practices, live dangerously, take advantage of all opportunities; see prosper , trick .

Syn.- wit refers to the ability to perceive the incongruous and to express it in quick, sharp, spontaneous, often sarcastic remarks that delight or entertain; humor is applied to the ability to perceive and express that which is comical, ludicrous, or ridiculous, but connotes kindliness, geniality, sometimes even pathos, in the expression and a reaction of sympathetic amusement from the audience; irony refers to the humor implicit in the contradiction between literal expression and intended meaning or in the discrepancy between appearance and reality in life; satire applies to the use, especially in literature, of ridicule, sarcasm, irony, etc. in exposing and attacking vices or follies; repartee refers to the ability to reply or retort with quick, skillful wit or humor

III

(Roget's 3 Superthesaurus) n.

1. intellectual powers intelligence, reason, *brains, *brain power, intellect, sense, common sense, sagacity, understanding, judgment, acumen, perception, wisdom, comprehension.

2. cleverness sense of humor, humor, drollery, satire, irony, repartee, banter, bon mot, jest, wordplay, wisecrack, pun, joke, witticism. ''Educated insolence.''—Aristotle. ''The salt of conversation.''—William Hazlitt.

3. clever humorist comedian, satirist, jokester, comic, *wise guy, wiseacre, quipster, *cutup.

ANT.: 1. stupidity, dullness, slowness

IV

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun 1. The faculty of thinking, reasoning, and acquiring and applying knowledge: brain (often used in plural), brainpower, intellect, intelligence, mentality, mind, sense, understanding. Slang: smart (used in plural). See ABILITY, THOUGHTS. 2. Skill in perceiving, discriminating, or judging: acumen, astuteness, clear-sightedness, discernment, discrimination, eye, keenness, nose, penetration, perceptiveness, percipience, percipiency, perspicacity, sagacity, sageness, shrewdness. See ABILITY, CAREFUL. 3. A healthy mental state. Used in plural: lucidity, lucidness, mind, reason, saneness, sanity, sense (often used in plural), soundness. Slang: marble (used in plural). See SANE. 4. The quality of being laughable or comical: comedy, comicality, comicalness, drollery, drollness, farcicality, funniness, humor, humorousness, jocoseness, jocosity, jocularity, ludicrousness, ridiculousness, wittiness, zaniness. See LAUGHTER. 5. A person whose words or actions provoke or are intended to provoke amusement or laughter: clown, comedian, comic, farceur, funnyman, humorist, jester, joker, jokester, quipster, wag2, zany. Informal: card. See LAUGHTER.