hight

• highte

• Rhymes: -aɪt
• IPA^(key): /haɪt/
• Homophone: height

From Middle English hight (“to be named, be called”) (alternative past participle of hoten), from Old English hēht (preterite of hātan, “to be named, be called”), from *hehait-, reduplicate preterite base of Proto-Germanic *haitaną (“to call, command, summon”), from Proto-Indo-European *key(w)-, *kyew- (“to set in motion”). Cognate with West Frisian hjitte, Dutch heten, Low German heten, German heißen, Danish hedde, Norwegian Nynorsk heita, Swedish heta, Latin cieō (“I call, I set in motion”).

hight (third-person singular simple present - or (obsolete) hote, present participle - or (obsolete) hoting, simple past and past participle hight) hight is only the preterite or past participle, not the infinitive or present.

1. (archaic, transitive) To call, name.
   • Byron

     Childe Harold was he hight.

2. (archaic, intransitive) To be called or named.
   • Surrey

     Bright was her hue, and Geraldine she hight.

3. (archaic, dialectal) To command; to enjoin.

   I hight ye take me wi' ye. I ne can no lenger her b'live.

   • 1872, John Stuart Blackie, Lays of the Highlands and Islands:

     Malaise priest of Innishmuurry / Hights me go, and I obey.

The verb hight has many different forms in many different regions. For the present tense the form het is rather common. The usage example for the sense "to command or to enjoin" can be rendered in standard English in the following manner:

• I hight ye take me wi' ye. I ne can no lenger her b'live = I bid you take me with you. I can no longer stay here.

Moreover, the verb hight, in the sense "to enjoin", is mainly used for emphasis, and as such is untranslatable into standard English. For example: I het ye leit mee men ga. 'Ey ne dyde nathing te na ane. 'Ey ar wyteless. (Please, let my men go. They did not do anything to any one. They are blameless).

It should also be noted that the verb hight survives only as part of the oral tradition in rural Scotland and Northern England. It is not used in common speech.

hight (not comparable)

1. (archaic) Called, named.

   Synonym: yclept

   • 1886-88, Richard F. Burton, The Supplemental Nights to the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 514:

     […] there dwelt in a city of the cities of China a man which was a tailor, withal a pauper, and he had one son, Alaeddin hight.

See height

hight (plural hights)

1. Obsolete form of height.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Milton to this entry?)

• thigh

• huht, hihht, hihte, hiȝte, hiht

From Old English hyht, from Proto-Germanic *huhtiz.

• IPA^(key): /hixt/
• Rhymes: -ixt

hight

1. hopefulness, expectedness
2. gladness, satisfaction

• English: hight (obsolete)

• “hight (n.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-05-24.