as in mind
the normal or healthy condition of the mental abilities
scared out of her wits
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Recent Examples of wits
Scared out of their wits, Islanders fled.
—
Literary Hub, 28 Jan. 2026
Conversations between Linda and Bradley play like a high-stakes battle of wits, but their director is never so far away as to make the match feel lawless.
—Alison Foreman, IndieWire, 26 Jan. 2026
Named one of the 10 Best Books of 2025 by The New York Times, Angel Down follows Private Cyril Bagger, who has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of WWI through his wits and deception, swindling fellow soldiers at every opportunity.
—Matt Grobar, Deadline, 26 Jan. 2026
Scavengers Reign follows a group of spaceship crew members stranded on an alien planet who must use their wits to survive.
—Ilana Gordon, Entertainment Weekly, 19 Jan. 2026
His wits and ingenuity versus the knights’ brutality and violence is a worthy match.
—Lorraine Ali, Los Angeles Times, 16 Jan. 2026
What follows is an engrossing battle of wits that leads to some shocking revelations about the fractured reality of humanity.
—Jeff Spry, Space.com, 27 Dec. 2025
But then Rivers, operating on pure wits and gall all game, tried to go back to the well.
—Dieter Kurtenbach, Mercury News, 23 Dec. 2025
Sondheim got to work at eight o’clock one night, devising a version of the murder game in which all the players would have to use their wits to untangle the mystery.
—Michael Schulman, New Yorker, 15 Dec. 2025
Literary Hub, 28 Jan. 2026
Conversations between Linda and Bradley play like a high-stakes battle of wits, but their director is never so far away as to make the match feel lawless.
—Alison Foreman, IndieWire, 26 Jan. 2026
Named one of the 10 Best Books of 2025 by The New York Times, Angel Down follows Private Cyril Bagger, who has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of WWI through his wits and deception, swindling fellow soldiers at every opportunity.
—Matt Grobar, Deadline, 26 Jan. 2026
Scavengers Reign follows a group of spaceship crew members stranded on an alien planet who must use their wits to survive.
—Ilana Gordon, Entertainment Weekly, 19 Jan. 2026
His wits and ingenuity versus the knights’ brutality and violence is a worthy match.
—Lorraine Ali, Los Angeles Times, 16 Jan. 2026
What follows is an engrossing battle of wits that leads to some shocking revelations about the fractured reality of humanity.
—Jeff Spry, Space.com, 27 Dec. 2025
But then Rivers, operating on pure wits and gall all game, tried to go back to the well.
—Dieter Kurtenbach, Mercury News, 23 Dec. 2025
Sondheim got to work at eight o’clock one night, devising a version of the murder game in which all the players would have to use their wits to untangle the mystery.
—Michael Schulman, New Yorker, 15 Dec. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for wits
Noun
-
The brainchild of Chris Roberts, the mind behind Wing Commander and Freelancer, Star Citizen is probably the most ambitious ongoing project in video games, having raised nearly one billion dollars in funding as of this writing.—
Alan Bradley,
Space.com,
31 Jan. 2026
-
But for the mother-daughter pair, their minds were on Minneapolis and how federal agents have handled immigration enforcement.—
John Lauritsen,
CBS News,
30 Jan. 2026
Noun
-
Surprised, the team performed a sanity check—the researchers calculated heritability in the traditional way for twins born between 1900 and 1935, an era when rapid medical advances steadily curtailed premature death.—
Cody Cottier,
Scientific American,
29 Jan. 2026
-
Indeed, accepting its finitude is a crucial step toward sanity, freedom, and happiness.—
The New Yorker,
New Yorker,
28 Jan. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Wits.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/wits. Accessed 1 Feb. 2026.
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