"have one's wits about one" meaning in English

See have one's wits about one in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-have one's wits about one.ogg [Australia] Forms: has one's wits about one [present, singular, third-person], having one's wits about one [participle, present], had one's wits about one [participle, past], had one's wits about one [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|have<has,,had> one's wits about one}} have one's wits about one (third-person singular simple present has one's wits about one, present participle having one's wits about one, simple past and past participle had one's wits about one)
  1. (idiomatic) To remain calm, composed, focused, or aware. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: keep one's cool, keep one's wits about one Related terms: have one's mind about one
    Sense id: en-have_one's_wits_about_one-en-verb-p7HqW4uH Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for have one's wits about one meaning in English (2.3kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "has one's wits about one",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "having one's wits about one",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had one's wits about one",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had one's wits about one",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "have<has,,had> one's wits about one"
      },
      "expansion": "have one's wits about one (third-person singular simple present has one's wits about one, present participle having one's wits about one, simple past and past participle had one's wits about one)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1869, Anthony Trollope, chapter 3, in Phineas Finn",
          "text": "He was confused, half elated, half disappointed, and had not his wits about him.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1889, Horatio Alger, chapter 10, in Luke Walton",
          "text": "Luke alone seemed to have his wits about him. He saw that there was not a moment to lose, and, gathering up his strength, dashed to the old lady's assistance.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1908, Upton Sinclair, chapter 10, in The Moneychangers",
          "text": "And if you think he won't have his wits about him, just you try to fool him on some deal, and see.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To remain calm, composed, focused, or aware."
      ],
      "id": "en-have_one's_wits_about_one-en-verb-p7HqW4uH",
      "links": [
        [
          "calm",
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        [
          "composed",
          "composed"
        ],
        [
          "focused",
          "focused"
        ],
        [
          "aware",
          "aware"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To remain calm, composed, focused, or aware."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "have one's mind about one"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "keep one's cool"
        },
        {
          "word": "keep one's wits about one"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-have one's wits about one.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/14/En-au-have_one%27s_wits_about_one.ogg/En-au-have_one%27s_wits_about_one.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/En-au-have_one%27s_wits_about_one.ogg",
      "tags": [
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      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "have one's wits about one"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "has one's wits about one",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "having one's wits about one",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had one's wits about one",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had one's wits about one",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "have<has,,had> one's wits about one"
      },
      "expansion": "have one's wits about one (third-person singular simple present has one's wits about one, present participle having one's wits about one, simple past and past participle had one's wits about one)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "have one's mind about one"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1869, Anthony Trollope, chapter 3, in Phineas Finn",
          "text": "He was confused, half elated, half disappointed, and had not his wits about him.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1889, Horatio Alger, chapter 10, in Luke Walton",
          "text": "Luke alone seemed to have his wits about him. He saw that there was not a moment to lose, and, gathering up his strength, dashed to the old lady's assistance.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1908, Upton Sinclair, chapter 10, in The Moneychangers",
          "text": "And if you think he won't have his wits about him, just you try to fool him on some deal, and see.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To remain calm, composed, focused, or aware."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "calm",
          "calm"
        ],
        [
          "composed",
          "composed"
        ],
        [
          "focused",
          "focused"
        ],
        [
          "aware",
          "aware"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To remain calm, composed, focused, or aware."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-have one's wits about one.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/14/En-au-have_one%27s_wits_about_one.ogg/En-au-have_one%27s_wits_about_one.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/En-au-have_one%27s_wits_about_one.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "keep one's cool"
    },
    {
      "word": "keep one's wits about one"
    }
  ],
  "word": "have one's wits about one"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.