wyʒt

adj.

Gaw superl. wyʒtest; Pe wyʒte; WA wiʒt, wight

‘lively, loud, valiant, strong, fierce; quick’ (Modern English wight)

Etymology

cp. OIcel víg-t, neut./adv. of vígr ‘in fighting state, serviceable’ < PGmc *wīga-; cp. OE orwīge ‘defenceless’ (interpreted by Heid as a derivation on the wk. n. OE wīg (< *wīgan) rather than as directly cognate), MHG wīge ‘militant’. Given the -t, wyʒt was perhaps borrowed and first used as an adv. 

PGmc Ancestor

*wīga-

Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)

vígr ‘in fighting state, serviceable’
(ONP vígr (adj.))

Other Scandinavian Reflexes

Icel vígur, Norw andvig, runic Sw wīgaʀ, Sw vig

OE Cognate

orwīge ‘defenceless’

Phonological and morphological markers

<p>ON adjectival (adverbial) <em>-t</em></p>

Summary category

A2*c

Attestation

Predominantly N and E and alliterative in ME and a northern word in CT.Rv., but there are also a number of SWM occurrences, and some in later SE writers inc. Gower and Hoccleve; in various MnE dial, especially N. 

Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus

Gaw 119, 261, 1591; Pe 694; Erk 69; WA 765*, 1014, 1798 etc.

On the legibility of Gaw 1591 wyʒtest (Madden <wyʒcrest>) in the MS, see Knott 1915: 108. There may be a further instance at Gaw 1762, depending on how the form is parsed; see wiʒt (adv.).

Bibliography

MED wight (adj.) , OED wight (adj. and adv.) , HTOED , HTOED , Dance wyʒt, Bj. 19-20, de Vries vígr, Mag. vígur, Heid. weiga-, Orel *wīʒaz