mental ability
"he's got plenty of brains but no common sense"
Sanity.
"During the birding workshop, we took a WIT to identify the species in the wetlands."
Initialism of waterfowl identification test.
In plain English: Wit is your quick and clever way of saying something funny to make people laugh.
"Her sharp wit made every conversation at the party enjoyable."
Know, be aware of (constructed with of when used intransitively).
"She was witty enough to know a compliment when she heard it."
In plain English: To wit means to mean exactly what you say without any hidden tricks or double meanings.
"He did not just answer with facts, but he also witted back at her clever remark about his tie."
Usage: Use this verb to mean being conscious or alert about something, typically followed by the preposition of when standing alone. It is often confused with "wist," an archaic form that should not appear in modern writing.
Pronunciation spelling of with.
"The teacher corrected his pronunciation, telling him to say 'with' instead of 'wit'."
The word "wit" comes from Old English witt, which originally meant understanding or intellect before traveling into Middle and Modern English with that same core meaning of mental sharpness. Its roots trace back through Proto-Germanic to a Proto-Indo-European term related to seeing and knowing, sharing distant relatives like the German noun for "joke."