English
wont
Pronunciation
  • (RP) IPA: /wəʊnt/, /wɒnt/
  • (General American) enPR: wŏnt, wônt, wōnt, wŭnt, IPA: /wɑnt/, /wɔnt/, /woʊnt/, /wʌnt/
  • IPA: /wʊnt/
Etymology 1

Origin uncertain; apparently a conflation of wone ("custom, habit, practice") and wont (participle adjective, below). Compare nds-de Gewohnte and Dutch gewoonte. Likely related to wone, wonder, wean, and win, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wenh₁-; more there.

Noun

wont (uncountable)

  1. (archaic) One's habitual way of doing things; custom, habit, practice.
    Synonyms: wone, habit, routine, ritual
    He awoke at the crack of dawn, as was his wont.
    • 2001, Orhan Pamuk; Erdağ M. Göknar, transl., “I am Called Black”, in My Name Is Red, London: Faber and Faber, ISBN 978-0-571-20047-4; paperback edition, London: Faber and Faber, 2002, ISBN 978-0-571-21224-8, page 62 ↗:
      With a simple-minded desire, and to rid my mind of this irrepressible urge, I retired to a corner of the room, as was my wont, but after a while I realized I couldn't jack off—proof well enough that I'd fallen in love again after twelve years!
Translations Etymology 2

From Middle English wont, iwoned, from Old English ġewunod, past participle of ġewunian.

Adjective

wont (not comparable)

  1. Accustomed or used (to or with a thing), accustomed or apt (to do something).
    He is wont to complain loudly about his job.
    • 1751, [Thomas Gray], An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church-yard, London: Printed for R[obert] Dodsley in Pall-Mall; and sold by M[ary] Cooper in Pater-noster-Row, →OCLC ↗; republished as “An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard”, in A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes. By Several Hands, volume IV, 2nd edition, London: Printed by J. Hughs, for R[obert] and J[ames] Dodsley, at Tully's-Head in Pall-Mall, 1758, →OCLC ↗, page 5 ↗:
      On ſome fond breaſt the parting ſoul relies, / Some pious drops the cloſing eye requires; / Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, / Ev'n in our Aſhes live their wonted Fires.
Translations Etymology 3

From Middle English wonten, from wont.

Verb

wont (wonts, present participle wonting; simple past and past participle wonted)

  1. (transitive, archaic) To make (someone) used to; to accustom.
  2. (intransitive, archaic) To be accustomed (to something), to be in the habit (of doing something).
    • c. 1580, Edmund Spenser, “The Teares of the Mvses[: Thalia]”, in Complaints: Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. VVhereof the Next Page Maketh Mention, London: Imprinted for VVilliam Ponsonbie, dwelling in Paules Churchyard at the signe of the Bishops head, published 1591, →OCLC ↗; republished in “The Teares of the Mvses ↗[: Thalia]”, in The Faerie Qveen: The Shepheards Calendar: Together with the Other Works of England's Arch-Pöet, Edm. Spenser: Collected into One Volume, and Carefully Corrected, London: Printed by H[umphrey] L[ownes] for Mathew Lownes, 1617, →OCLC ↗:
      What be the ſweet delights of learning a treaſure, / That wont with Comick ſock to beautify / The painted Theaters, and fill with pleaſure / The liſtners eyes, and eares with melodie; […]
Translations Translations

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