wot
verbEtymology From wit, in return from Old English witan.
1
First person, Indicative, Present first-person singular present indicative of wit
2
Indicative, Present, Third person third-person singular simple present indicative of wit
wot
verbUK /wɒt/ · US /wɑt/
Etymology From Middle English woten, from Old English weotan. An extension of the present-tense form of wit (verb) to apply to all forms.
1
Archaic To know (in the sense of knowing a fact).
- He that walketh in the darke, wotteth not whither he goeth.1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, John:
- 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.1878, Thomas Tusser, “74. A Digression.”, in Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie. […], London: Published for the English Dialect Society by Trübner & Co., […], →OCLC; republished as W[illiam] Payne, Sidney J[ohn Hervon] Herrtage, editors, Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie. […], London: Published for the English Dialect Society by Trübner & Co., […], 1878, →OCLC, stanza 4, page 166:
4 more examples
- VVots thou vvho's returnd, / The unthrift Bonvile, ragged as a ſcarre-crovv / The VVarres have gnavv'd his garments to the skinne: […]1637, Thomas Heywood, The Royall King, and the Loyall Subject. […], London: […] Nich[olas] and John Okes, for James Becket, […], →OCLC, Act III, signature E4, verso:
- She little wots, poor Lady Anne! Her wedded lord is dead.1855, John Godfrey Saxe, Poems, Ticknor & Fields, published 1855, page 121:
- I sang these things long since and knew them not; "Lo, here is love, or there is love, God wot, This man and that finds favour in his eyes," I said, "but I, what guerdon have I got?1862-1866, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Laus Veneris:
- They wot not who make thither […]1866, Algernon Charles Swinburne, "The Garden of Proserpine" in Poems and Ballads, 1st Series, London: J. C. Hotten, 1866