"midwit" meaning in English

See midwit in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˈmɪdwɪt/ Forms: midwits [plural]
Etymology: From mid- + wit; likely coined in line with nitwit, halfwit, etc. Etymology templates: {{af|en|mid-|wit}} mid- + wit Head templates: {{en-noun}} midwit (plural midwits)
  1. (neologism, chiefly Internet slang, mildly derogatory) A person of middling intellect; someone who is neither particularly dull nor particularly smart, especially if they act as though they are smarter than they are. Tags: Internet, derogatory, mildly, neologism Derived forms: midwittery Related terms: midbrow, midcult Coordinate_terms: halfwit, lackwit

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "mid-",
        "3": "wit"
      },
      "expansion": "mid- + wit",
      "name": "af"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From mid- + wit; likely coined in line with nitwit, halfwit, etc.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "midwits",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "midwit (plural midwits)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English neologisms",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms prefixed with mid-",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "coordinate_terms": [
        {
          "word": "halfwit"
        },
        {
          "word": "lackwit"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "midwittery"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              37,
              43
            ],
            [
              144,
              150
            ],
            [
              144,
              151
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2022 January 7, Merri, “Brief Genealogy of the Midwit”, in The Pillarist:",
          "text": "At no point in this process does the midwit have to review information for himself or consider ideas in abstract. […] How then should we not be midwits? Painting with broad strokes: avoid media. Cultivate taste. Grow and train your sense of aesthetics. Recognize beauty. Practice virtue. Pray.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              35,
              41
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2023 February 11, Janan Ganesh, “After Germany's fall, which is the paragon nation?”, in FT Weekend, page 22:",
          "text": "A true paragon nation captures the midwit, get-the-news-from-Trevor-Noah demographic.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              24,
              31
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2023 February 21, David Sinclair, The Wolf Tamers: How They Made the Strong Weak:",
          "text": "Congress is packed with midwits. There are no intellectuals in Congress. None could flourish in such a mediocre environment.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              27,
              33
            ],
            [
              27,
              34
            ],
            [
              184,
              190
            ],
            [
              221,
              227
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2023 June 27, Josiah Gogarty, “Beware the midwit trap”, in The New Statesman, archived from the original on 27 Jun 2023:",
          "text": "Online, people make fun of midwits with a specific meme format: an IQ bell curve, with a character placed at each extreme and one above the bulge in the middle. […] One example of the midwit trap is investing. Above, the midwit – perhaps a Reddit-browsing amateur trader, or the solid kind of chap who works in wealth management – will go on about hot stocks and market conditions.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              14,
              20
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2025 May 10, Janan Ganesh, “Why travel didn't bring the world together”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 19:",
          "text": "It is still a midwit dinner party applause line that such and such a percentage of Americans don't have passports.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A person of middling intellect; someone who is neither particularly dull nor particularly smart, especially if they act as though they are smarter than they are."
      ],
      "id": "en-midwit-en-noun-96uLyv0B",
      "links": [
        [
          "Internet",
          "Internet"
        ],
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "middling",
          "middling"
        ],
        [
          "intellect",
          "intellect"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(neologism, chiefly Internet slang, mildly derogatory) A person of middling intellect; someone who is neither particularly dull nor particularly smart, especially if they act as though they are smarter than they are."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "midbrow"
        },
        {
          "word": "midcult"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Internet",
        "derogatory",
        "mildly",
        "neologism"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈmɪdwɪt/"
    }
  ],
  "word": "midwit"
}
{
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "midwittery"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "mid-",
        "3": "wit"
      },
      "expansion": "mid- + wit",
      "name": "af"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From mid- + wit; likely coined in line with nitwit, halfwit, etc.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "midwits",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "midwit (plural midwits)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "midbrow"
    },
    {
      "word": "midcult"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English derogatory terms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English internet slang",
        "English lemmas",
        "English neologisms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms prefixed with mid-",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "coordinate_terms": [
        {
          "word": "halfwit"
        },
        {
          "word": "lackwit"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              37,
              43
            ],
            [
              144,
              150
            ],
            [
              144,
              151
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2022 January 7, Merri, “Brief Genealogy of the Midwit”, in The Pillarist:",
          "text": "At no point in this process does the midwit have to review information for himself or consider ideas in abstract. […] How then should we not be midwits? Painting with broad strokes: avoid media. Cultivate taste. Grow and train your sense of aesthetics. Recognize beauty. Practice virtue. Pray.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              35,
              41
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2023 February 11, Janan Ganesh, “After Germany's fall, which is the paragon nation?”, in FT Weekend, page 22:",
          "text": "A true paragon nation captures the midwit, get-the-news-from-Trevor-Noah demographic.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              24,
              31
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2023 February 21, David Sinclair, The Wolf Tamers: How They Made the Strong Weak:",
          "text": "Congress is packed with midwits. There are no intellectuals in Congress. None could flourish in such a mediocre environment.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              27,
              33
            ],
            [
              27,
              34
            ],
            [
              184,
              190
            ],
            [
              221,
              227
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2023 June 27, Josiah Gogarty, “Beware the midwit trap”, in The New Statesman, archived from the original on 27 Jun 2023:",
          "text": "Online, people make fun of midwits with a specific meme format: an IQ bell curve, with a character placed at each extreme and one above the bulge in the middle. […] One example of the midwit trap is investing. Above, the midwit – perhaps a Reddit-browsing amateur trader, or the solid kind of chap who works in wealth management – will go on about hot stocks and market conditions.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              14,
              20
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2025 May 10, Janan Ganesh, “Why travel didn't bring the world together”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 19:",
          "text": "It is still a midwit dinner party applause line that such and such a percentage of Americans don't have passports.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A person of middling intellect; someone who is neither particularly dull nor particularly smart, especially if they act as though they are smarter than they are."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Internet",
          "Internet"
        ],
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "middling",
          "middling"
        ],
        [
          "intellect",
          "intellect"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(neologism, chiefly Internet slang, mildly derogatory) A person of middling intellect; someone who is neither particularly dull nor particularly smart, especially if they act as though they are smarter than they are."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Internet",
        "derogatory",
        "mildly",
        "neologism"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈmɪdwɪt/"
    }
  ],
  "word": "midwit"
}

Download raw JSONL data for midwit meaning in English (3.4kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-01-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-01-01 using wiktextract (96027d6 and 9905b1f). 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.