Etymology
Origin of half-wit
First recorded in 1670–80
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In his withering 1950 essay “The Simple Art of Murder,” Raymond Chandler wrote that the solution to Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express” was so far-fetched that “only a half-wit could guess it.”
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 9, 2017
Back to playing a man-child very much in the mold of his “Hangover” character, which is to say someone who is a quarter of the way to being a half-wit.
From Seattle Times • Sep. 29, 2016
Richard Armstrong conducted with incisive intelligence, the orchestra was phenomenal and the lineup of creepy, half-wit suitors, led by Andrew Shore, Christopher Turner and Ryland Davies, completed a mesmerising night.
From The Guardian • Sep. 25, 2010
Adventures of a half-wit youth and his dog in the pixillated Irish countryside; in the same vein but not the same class as James Stephens' Crock of GoId.
From Time Magazine Archive
“A plot against me. You're all in it, every one of you. Someone’s paid this half-wit, I tell you. Paid him to tell his string of dirty lies.”
From "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
