Inwit

//ˈɪnwɪt// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Inward knowledge or understanding. archaic, uncountable

    ""Will it make you happy?" / "Probably not," Kai said irritably. "Inwit tells me that you're trouble from the beginning.""

  2. 2
    Conscience; inward sense of morality. obsolete, uncountable

    "Speaking to me. They wash and tub and scrub. Agenbite of inwit. Conscience."

Example

More examples

""Will it make you happy?" / "Probably not," Kai said irritably. "Inwit tells me that you're trouble from the beginning.""

Etymology

From Middle English inwit (“mind, reason, intellect, understanding; soul, spirit; feeling; the collection of inner faculties; one of five inner faculties; one of the outer bodily senses.; inward awareness of right or wrong, conscience”), from Old English *inwitt, inġewitnes (“consciousness, conscience, knowledge, knowing”), equivalent to in- + wit. Compare Scots inwit, Saterland Frisian Gewieten, West Frisian gewisse, Dutch geweten, German Low German Geweten, German Gewissen.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.