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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 a living creature, especially a human being.

As an 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}} '>citation '>citation '>citation '>citation

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Derived terms

    * wraithish * wraithful * wraithlike

    See also

    * (wikipedia "wraith")

    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

    References

    * English terms with homophones ----