a. (Stress variable.) [f. quick wit + -ED2.] Having a quick or ready wit; mentally acute, sharp, clever.

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1530.  Tindale, Pent., Lev., Prol. (1884), 297. Allegoryes make a man qwick witted.

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1596.  Shaks., Tam. Shr., V. ii. 38. How likes Gremio these quicke-witted folkes?

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1693.  Dryden, Juvenal, iii. (1697), 50. Quick-Witted, Brazen-fac’d, with fluent Tongues.

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1702.  Mead, Mech. Acc. Poisons, Wks. (1775), 50. Impatient, ready to action, quickwitted.

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1824.  Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. I. (1863), 133. There is always great freshness and originality in an uneducated and quick-witted person.

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1870.  Lowell, Among My Books, Ser. I. (1873), 189. The cultivated and quick-witted men in whose familiar society he lived.

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  Hence Quickwittedness.

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1863.  Cowden Clarke, Shaks. Char., x. 257. He has French quick-wittedness, French good temper.

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1883.  P. Schaff, Hist. Church, Per. 1. II. lxxxiii. 712. The curiosity and quick-wittedness of the Samaritan Magdalene.

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