noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A man who knows and tolerates his wife's infidelity with another man or men; a mari complaisant. archaic

   "To see […] a wittol wink at his wife's honesty, and too perspicuous in all other affairs […]"

2. 2
   an archaic term for a cuckold who knows about his wife's infidelity but tolerates it wordnet
3. 3
   A bird, the wheatear. UK, dialectal, obsolete

Synonyms

All synonyms

mari complaisantplonker

Example

More examples

"To see […] a wittol wink at his wife's honesty, and too perspicuous in all other affairs […]"

Etymology

From Middle English witewold; likely a blend of witen (“to know”) + cockewold (“cuckold”), equivalent to wit + cuckold.

Related phrases

mari complaisant

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