Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- transitive v. To surpass in cleverness or cunning; outsmart.
- transitive v. Archaic To surpass in intelligence.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- v. To get the better of; to outsmart, to beat in a competition of wits.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- transitive v. To surpass in wisdom, esp. in cunning.
- transitive v. To defeat or gain an advantage over by superior craft or cunning stratagems.
- n. The faculty of acquiring wisdom by observation and experience, or the wisdom so acquired; -- opposed to
inwit .
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To surpass in intelligence.
- To surpass in plots or stratagems; defeat or frustrate by superior ingenuity; prove too clever for.
- n. The faculty of observation, or the knowledge gained by observation and experience: opposed to inwit.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- v. beat through cleverness and wit
Etymologies
Examples
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Ethan Zohn, once a professional soccer player, proved he has what it takes to "outwit" and "outlast" when he won the reality T.V. show "Survivor: Africa."
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I think it was smart of Sugar to mastermind a coup this close to the end to add to her 'outwit' credit with the jury, but neither her or Suzie can win in the jury against Bob, Matty or Kenny.
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While Jaime tries to cooperate with and outwit his captor, Marta and Isa find themselves at the mercy of two less rational members of the home-invasion team.
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Thats just to bad, He tried to outwit the very organization that allows him to hunt.
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Each person trying to outwit the next person, while everybody else tries to pick each others' pocket.
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But Mawuli glowers at Papa, apparently thinking about how to outwit Papa, not thinking about Mary Catherine.
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Soviet experts were confident the USSR could outwit any missile defense system the Americans built at a fraction of the cost.
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Today, no poet could outwit any reader who has an Internet connection.
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And even more importantly, is there a way to outwit such professionals, short of announcing one's monetary limit outright?
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The dry and ferociously clever Jon Cunliffe, who will soon replace the amiable and smooth Kim Darroch as Britain's "perm rep" in Brussels, will have to use all his cunning learnt in his days as a taxi driver to outwit the opposition.
Angela Merkel to David Cameron: support us or we leave UK behind
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