wot

See also: wót

English

Pronunciation

• (General Australian) enPR: wŏt, IPA^(key): /wɔt/
• (UK) enPR: wŏt, IPA^(key): /wɒt/
• (US) enPR: wät, IPA^(key): /wɑt/
• Rhymes: -ɒt
• Homophones: watt, what (in accents with the wine-whine merger)

Etymology 1

An extension of the present-tense form of wit (verb) to apply to all forms.

Verb

wot (third-person singular simple present wots, present participle wotting, simple past and past participle wotted)

1. (archaic) To know.
   • 1526, William Tyndale, trans. Bible, John XII:

     He that walketh in the darke, wotteth not whither he goeth.

   • 1580, Thomas Tusser, “74. A Digression.”, in Fiue Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie: […], imprinted at London: By Henrie Denham [beeing the assigne of William Seres] […], OCLC 837741850; republished as W[illiam] Payne and Sidney J[ohn Hervon] Herrtage, editors, Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie. […], London: Published for the English Dialect Society by Trübner & Co., […], 1878, OCLC 7391867535, stanza 4, page 166:

     Take heed to false harlots, and more, ye wot what. / If noise ye heare, / Looke all be cleare: / Least drabs doe noie thee, / And theeues destroie thee.

   • 1855, John Godfrey Saxe, Poems, Ticknor & Fields 1855, p. 121:

     She little wots, poor Lady Anne! Her wedded lord is dead.

   • 1866, Algernon Charles Swinburne, "The Garden of Proserpine" in Poems and Ballads, 1st Series, London: J. C. Hotten, 1866:

     They wot not who make thither […]

   • 1889, William Morris, The Roots of the Mountains, Inkling Books 2003, p. 241:

     Then he cast his eyes on the road that entered the Market-stead from the north, and he saw thereon many men gathered; and he wotted not what they were […]

Etymology 2

From wit, in return from Old English witan.

Verb

wot

1. first-person singular present indicative of wit
2. Third-person singular simple present indicative form of wit

Etymology 3

Representing pronunciation.

Interjection

wot

1. Eye dialect spelling of what.
   • 1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (Penguin 2003, p. 319)

     Then, wot with undertakers, and wot with parish clerks, and wot with sextons, and wot with private watchmen (all awaricious and all in it), a man wouldn't get much by it, even if it was so.

   Wot, no bananas? (popular slogan during wartime rationing)

Etymology 4

Adverb

wot (not comparable)

1. (Singlish) Alternative form of wat (used to contradict an assumption)

Anagrams

• OTW, TOW, Tow, WTO, owt, tow, two

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Kriol

Etymology

From English what.

Pronoun

wot

1. (interrogative) what

Synonyms

• wani/wanim

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Lower Sorbian

Preposition

wot (with genitive)

1. Superseded spelling of wót.

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Tok Pisin

Etymology

From English ward.

Noun

wot

1. ward