wont
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also won’t
Contents |
English[edit]
Pronunciation[edit]
Etymology 1[edit]
Origin uncertain: apparently a conflation of wone and wont (participle adjective, below).
Noun[edit]
wont (usually uncountable; plural wonts)
- One’s habitual way of doing things, practice, custom.
- He awoke at the crack of dawn, as was his wont.
- Milton
- They are […] to be called out to their military motions, under sky or covert, according to the season, as was the Roman wont.
- 2006, Orhan Pamuk, My Name Is Red:
- With a simple-minded desire, and to rid my mind of this irrepressible urge, I retired to a corner of the room, as was my wont [...]
- 1920, James Brown Scott, The United States of America: a study in international organization:
- As was also the wont of international conferences, a delegate from Penn-j sylvania, in this instance James Wilson, proposed the appointment of a secretary and nominated William Temple Franklin
- 1914, Items of interest - Page 83:
- Such conditions, having been the common practice for years, and, existing in a less degree in some localities to the present time, afford a tangible reason for a form of correlation that is more universal than it is the wont of the profession to admit [...]
Translations[edit]
habitual way of doing things
Etymology 2[edit]
Old English ġewunod, past participle of ġewunian.
Adjective[edit]
wont (not comparable)
- (archaic) Accustomed or used (to or with a thing).
- 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 2, ch. XI, The Abbot’s Ways
- He could read English Manuscripts very elegantly, elegantissime: he was wont to preach to the people in the English tongue, though according to the dialect of Norfolk, where he had been brought up […]
- 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 2, ch. XI, The Abbot’s Ways
- (designating habitual behaviour) Accustomed, apt (to doing something).
- He is wont to complain loudly about his job.
- Like a 60-yard Percy Harvin touchdown run or a Joe Haden interception return, Urban Meyer’s jaw-dropping resignation Saturday was, as he’s wont to say, “a game-changer.” — Sunday December 27, 2009, Stewart Mandel, INSIDE COLLEGE FOOTBALL, Meyer’s shocking resignation rocks college coaching landscape
See also[edit]
Translations[edit]
accustomed, apt
Verb[edit]
wont (third-person singular simple present wonts, present participle wonting, simple past and past participle wonted)
- (transitive, archaic) To make (someone) used to; to accustom.
- (intransitive, archaic) To be accustomed.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.2:
- But by record of antique times I finde / That wemen wont in warres to beare most sway [...].
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.2:
