''wisp'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''wisp'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260125204041-00-⌔

wisp - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

wisp (countable and uncountable, plural wisps)

• A small bundle, as of straw or other like substance; a twisted handful of something; any slender, flexible structure or group.
  • ✤ A wisp of hair escaped her barrette and whipped wildly in the wind.
  • ✤ a wisp of a child
  • ✤ in a small basket, on a wisp of hay¹
• A small, thin line of cloud, smoke, or steam.
  • ✤ A wisp of smoke rose from the candle for a few moments after he blew it out.
  • ✤ Across the country a wisp of smoke showed, then gunyahs, and in a moment more we were right in the bush camp.²
• A whisk, or small broom.
• A will o’ the wisp, or ignis fatuus.
  • ✤ the wisp that flickers where no foot can tread³
• An immeasurable, indefinable essence of life; soul.
  • ✤ “She would get nothing from him, she saw, resentfully. Then some angel of grace lent her a few wisps, which she grasped.⁴
  • ✤ Apparently it had been too much; for his sleep, though deep as death itself, was not dreamless this time, but threaded with ghostly wisps of dreams.⁵
  • ✤ He was a wisp of spirit — all his substance, the meat of his being, the coat of flesh that had always slowed him, had long since slipped away. He knew he was in two places.⁶
  • ✤ The morning we stood on Monte de Gozo,and saw the cathedral spires as though floating in the distance, the sun was already making its ascent into the pale sky. It was difficult for me to accept that our journey was nearly over. Santiago had grown into much more than a destiny in my mind; it was the culmination of all that it meant to be human, and I feared that my spirit, no more than a wisp on this earth, would evaporate when the clouds decided to part.⁷
  • ✤ We entered the shed. The thick density of the smoke made it nigh impossible to distinguish anyone. It was like seeing wisps of spirits trailing IVs, shrouded bodies on the precipice of a low-key volcano.⁸
  • ✤ A faint layer of dew lay on the freshly turned earth. It steamed slightly, where the sun touched it, wisps of ghosts rising up from the ground.⁹
  • ✤ Another traditional answer to the question of what makes us so different, popular for millennia, has been that humans have a non-physical soul, one that inhabits the body but is distinct from it, an ethereal ghostly wisp that floats free at death to enjoy an after-life which may include reunion with other souls, or perhaps a new body to inhabit.¹⁰
• (archaic) A flock of snipe.
  • ✤ They shift their quarters in the early part of the season very suddenly, and if a man hears of a wisp of snipe in any particular place, he must be off at once.¹¹
  • ✤ A flock of snipe is given the collective name of a “wisp”, perhaps due to its rapid twisting and turning before the birds drop down again.¹²
• (uncountable) A disease affecting the feet of cattle.

Verb

wisp (third-person singular simple present wisps, present participle wisping, simple past and past participle wisped)

• (transitive) To brush or dress, as with a wisp.
  • ✤ The very same head of hair, wisp’d, and matted together, would make the most disagreeable figure.¹³
• (UK, dialect, obsolete) To rumple.
• (intransitive) To produce a wisp, as of smoke.
  • ✤ To Temple, sitting in the cottonseed-hulls and the corn-cobs, the sound was no louder than the striking of a match: a short, minor sound shutting down the scene, the instant, with a profound finality, completely isolating it, and she sat there, her legs straight before her, her hands limp and palm-up on her lap, looking at Popeye’s tight back and the ridges of his coat across his shoulders as he leaned out the door, the pistol behind him, against his flank, wisping thinly along his leg.¹⁴
• (transitive) To emit in wisps.
  • ✤ It looked warm and rosy-bright inside, with a little chimney wisping smoke, little windows glowing.¹⁵

Etymology

From Middle English wispe, wyspe, wips, wipse, perhaps from an unrecorded Old English ﹡wisp, ﹡wips. Cognate with West Frisian wisp, Dutch wisp (“bundle of hay or straw”), Norwegian bokmål/Swedish/Bornholm Danish visp (“handful or bundle of grass, hay, etc.”). Akin also to Middle Dutch/Middle Low German wispel (“measure of grain”).

Pronunciation

• IPA: /wɪsp/
• Audio (US): 🔊
• Rhymes: -ɪsp

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

1. 1693, Decimus Junius Juvenalis, John Dryden, transl., “[The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis.] The Third Satyr”, in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. […] Together with the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC: ↩

2. 1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 83: ↩

3. 1847, Alfred Tennyson, “”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC: ↩

4. 1982, Kamala Markandaya, Shalimar ‎${}^{[1]}$, Harper & Row, →ISBN, page 154: ↩

5. 1987, John E. Woods, Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer=Das Parfum ‎${}^{[2]}$, Pocket Books, page 163: ↩

6. 2006, Paul Theroux, Blinding Light: A Novel ‎${}^{[3]}$, Mariner Book, →ISBN, page 84: ↩

7. 2008, Cecilia Samartin, Tarnished Beauty: A Novel ‎${}^{[4]}$, Atria Books, →ISBN, page 301: ↩

8. 2011, Ken Bruen, Headstone ‎${}^{[5]}$, Mysterious Press, →ISBN, page 189: ↩

9. 2017, Cameron Dokey, Belle ‎${}^{[6]}$, Simon Pulse, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division, →ISBN, page 134: ↩

10. 2017 September 10, Nigel Warburton, “What does a portrait of Erica the android tell us about being human?”, in The Observer ‎${}^{[7]}$: ↩

11. 1861, Horace William Wheelwright, Bush Wanderings of a Naturalist, page 99: ↩

12. 1988, Michael Cady, Rob Hume, editors, The Complete Book of British Birds, page 158: ↩

13. 1753, William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty: ↩

14. 1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Library of America, published 1985, page 70: ↩

15. 2011, Iain Lawrence, The Winter Pony, page 219: ↩

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