Wraith vs Wight - What's the difference?
wraith | wight |
As nouns the difference between wraith and wight is that wraith is a ghost or specter, especially seen just after a person's death while wight is (archaic) a living creature, especially a human being. As a adjective wight is ( archaic except in dialects ) brave, valorous, strong.
wraith English
Noun
( en noun)
A ghost or specter, especially seen just after a person's death.
* '>citation
* {{quote-book
, year=1917
, year_published= 2008
, edition=HTML
, editor=
, author=Edgar Rice Burroughs
, title=A Princess of Mars
, chapter=
citation
, genre=
, publisher=The Gutenberg Project
, isbn=
, page=
, passage=We might indeed have been the wraiths of the departed dead upon the dead sea of that dying planet for all the sound or sign we made in passing.
}}
* {{quote-book, passage=Like wraiths with the impediments of bodies they stumbled in the direction of Salthill faces.
, title=Middle Age: A Romance
, year=2001
, author=
, publisher=Fourth Estate
, edition=paperback
, page=80}}
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Synonyms
* See also
Derived terms
* wraithish
* wraithful
* wraithlike
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wight English
Etymology 1
From (etyl), from (etyl) . See also (l).
The meaning of the wraith-like creature is from barrow-wights in world.
Noun
( en noun)
(archaic) A living creature, especially a human being.
* circa 1602 , , act 1, scene 3:
- O base Hungarian wight ! wilt thou the spigot wield?
* 1626 , , verse vi
- Oh say me true if thou wert mortal wight
And why from us so quickly thou didst take thy flight.
(paganism) A being of one of the Nine Worlds of heathen belief, especially a nature spirit, elf or ancestor.
(poetic) A ghost or other supernatural entity.
* 1789 , , lines 14-15-16
- But I saw a glow-worm near,
Who replied: ‘What wailing wight
Calls the watchman of the night?
(fantasy) A wraith-like creature.
Etymology 2
From (etyl), from (etyl) [Merriam-Webster, 1974.].
Adjective
(head)
(archaic except in dialects ) Brave, valorous, strong.
*:
*:I haue two sones that were but late made knyghtes / and the eldest hyghte sir Tirre // and my yongest sone hyght Lauayne / and yf hit please yow / he shalle ryde with yow vnto that Iustes / and he is of his age x stronge and wyght
Strong; stout; active.
See also
* Isle of Wight
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