Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Knowing; certain; sure.
  • To make sure; inform; declare (that).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective knowing, certain, sure, wis.
  • verb intransitive, intransitive to make sure, inform, or declare.
  • verb intransitive to speak at length on a trivial subject.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English witter, witer, of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse vitr ("wise, knowing"), from Proto-Germanic *witraz (“knowing”), from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“to know”). Cognate with Icelandic vitur ("wise"). More at wit, wis.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English witteren, witeren, of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse vitra ("to make wise, make sure"), from Proto-Germanic *witrōnan (“to make wise”), from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“to know”). Cognate with Icelandic vitra ("to make wise, make certain"), Icelandic vitur ("wise"). More at wit, wis.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word witter.

Examples

  • Being a professor of management, Lee is duty-bound to witter on about governance structures and such, which he does at length, but his main point is simple, indeed trivial: it's prudent to treat people the way Diab was treated.

    Archive 2009-08-01 2009

  • Clearly, I could witter on about this play for screens and screens.

    Measure For Measure deliasherman 2010

  • Clearly, I could witter on about this play for screens and screens.

    Measure For Measure deliasherman 2010

  • In point of fact, he gets paid (handsomely) to witter on in a quintessentially superficial and shallow way about his thoughts on pork chops, the NBA, teenage sex parties, and free trade.

    Matthew Yglesias » Endgame 2010

  • Preferably they'll be human (Meryl Streep and Julie Walters form a conga-line of shoulders to cry on in Mamma Mia!) but if not, you can always witter into a tape recorder in lieu of a voiceover.

    Film-inspired holidays: The Journey of self-discovery Catherine Shoard 2010

  • Meanwhile the Usual Suspects ™ witter on about that phantasmal, oxymoronic contruction, "liberal fascism."

    Archive 2009-02-01 2009

  • The US has a black president and all we want to do is witter over the fashion jargon for the exact shade of his wife's frock.

    Please give generously, but not to Poverty TV 2010

  • I could witter on about stone age barbarians who if they want to live under Sharia law etc etc but they have a right to free speech and no matter how offensive should not of been prosecuted.

    Giving evidence to the Chilcot inquiry, Tony Blair said: “I... 2010

  • I could witter on about stone age barbarians who if they want to live under Sharia law etc etc but they have a right to free speech and no matter how offensive should not of been prosecuted.

    Giving evidence to the Chilcot inquiry, Tony Blair said: “I... 2010

  • A decade or so later, when I had somehow managed to con a number of apparently intelligent people into paying me good money to witter on about nothing in particular, I was sent to Monaco to talk to Ed Moses.

    The secret to being a sporting great is not really trying 2010

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • To chatter or babble at undue length.

    May 13, 2008