writ

Etymology

From Middle English writ, iwrit, ȝewrit, from Old English writ (“letter, book, treatise; scripture, writing; writ, charter, document, deed”) and ġewrit (“writing, something written, written language; written character, bookstave; inscription; orthography; written statement, passage from a book; official or formal document, document; law, jurisprudence; regulation; list, catalog; letter; text of an agreement; writ, charter, deed; literary writing, book, treatise; books dealing with a subject under notice; a book of the Bible; scripture, canonical book, the Scriptures; stylus”), from Proto-Germanic *writą (“fissure, writing”), from Proto-Indo-European *wrey-, *wrī- (“to scratch, carve, ingrave”). Cognate with Scots writ (“writ, writing, handwriting”), Icelandic rit (“writing, writ, literary work, publication”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɹɪt/
• Rhymes: -ɪt

Noun

writ (plural writs)

1. (law) A written order, issued by a court, ordering someone to do (or stop doing) something.
2. Authority, power to enforce compliance.
   • 2009, Stephen Gale et al., The War on Terrorism: 21st-Century Perspectives‎, Transaction Publishers, →ISBN, page 30:

     We can't let them take advantage of the fact that there are so many areas of the world where no one's writ runs.

   • 1913, Elizabeth Kimball Kendall, A Wayfarer in China

     Within Lololand, of course, no Chinese writ runs, no Chinese magistrate holds sway, and the people, more or less divided among themselves, are under the government of their tribal chiefs.

3. (archaic) That which is written; writing.
   • Spenser

     Then to his hands that writ he did betake, / Which he disclosing read, thus as the paper spake.

   • Knolles

     Babylon, so much spoken of in Holy Writ

Verb

writ

1. (archaic, nonstandard) past tense of write
2. (archaic, nonstandard) past participle of write
   • John Dryden

     Let Virtuosos in five years be writ; / Yet not one thought accuse thy toil of wit. (Mac Flecknoe)

   • Omar Khayyam (in translation)

     The moving finger writes, and having writ, not all your piety or wit can lure it back to cancel half a line […]

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter I, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, London: A[ndrew] Millar, OCLC 928184292, book IV:

     For as this is the liquor of modern historians, nay, perhaps their muse, if we may believe the opinion of Butler, who attributes inspiration to ale, it ought likewise to be the potation of their readers, since every book ought to be read with the same spirit and in the same manner as it is writ.

Anagrams

• Wirt

Romanization

writ

1. Romanization of 𐍅𐍂𐌹𐍄

Alternative forms

• ġewrit, ƿrit

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *writą, whence also Old High German riz, Old Norse rit

Noun

writ n

1. writ