mother wit

plural mother wits · alternative mother-wit

1. uncountableInborn intelligence; innate good sense.First known use 15th c.

   Kate. Where did you study all this goodly speech? Petr. It is extempore, from my mother wit.

   c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]

   5 more examples

   For all that nature by her mother-wit Could frame in earth, and forme of substance base, Was there […].

   1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

   His mother-wit taught him that he must not, in such uncertain times, be too hasty in asking information of any one, [...]

   1820 March, [Walter Scott], chapter X, in The Monastery. A Romance. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Co., and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC, page 244

   The buffoon, though accustomed to deception and frauds, had sufficient mother-wit to comprehend the critical position in which he was now placed.

   1830, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 28, in The Headsman

   One of those young genii who write us Science Notes in the papers got hold of a German pamphlet about the birds of New Zealand, and translated some of it by means of a dictionary and his mother-wit — he must have been one of a very large family with a small mother — and he got mixed between the living apteryx and the extinct anomalopteryx...

   1894, Herbert George Wells, The Triumphs of a Taxidermist

   Russian author Panova, writing with unostentatious excellence, has both the compassion and the mother wit to describe the world of a six-year-old—and to recall an existence that most grownups have forgotten.

   1959 December 21, “FICTION: The Year's Best”, in Time, retrieved 04 Apr 2011

2. countableobsoleteA person with such intelligence.

   From iygging vaines of riming mother wits, And ſuch conceits as clownage keepes in pay, Weele lead you to the ſtately tent of War, Where you ſhall heare the Scythian Tamburlaine: Threatning the world with high aſtounding tearms And ſcourging kingdomes with his conquering ſword.

   c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act I, (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)

   Synonyms: common sense, native wit