Witan

//ˈwɪtən// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The Anglo-Saxon national council or witenagemot.

    "But in estimating the powers of the witan, we must not lose sight of the fact, that the king sometimes assumes a tone of superiority scarcely consistent with its independence."

Example

More examples

"But in estimating the powers of the witan, we must not lose sight of the fact, that the king sometimes assumes a tone of superiority scarcely consistent with its independence."

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Old English witan, plural of wita (“wise man”).

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