sit
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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See also: Appendix:Variations of "sit"
Symbol
sit
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
Etymology tree
From Middle English sitten, from Old English sittan, from Proto-West Germanic *sittjan, from Proto-Germanic *sitjaną, from Proto-Indo-European *sed- (“sit”).
Cognates
Cognate with West Frisian sitte, Low German sitten, Dutch zitten, German sitzen, Swedish sitta, Norwegian Bokmål sitte, Norwegian Nynorsk sitja; and with Irish suigh, Latin sedeo, Russian сиде́ть (sidétʹ).
Verb
sit (third-person singular simple present sits, present participle sitting, simple past sat or (dated, poetic) sate, past participle sat or (archaic, dialectal) sitten)
- (intransitive, copulative, of a person) To be in a position in which the upper body is upright and supported by the buttocks.
- 15th c., “[The Creation]”, in Wakefield Mystery Plays; Re-edited in George England, Alfred W. Pollard, editors, The Towneley Plays (Early English Text Society Extra Series; LXXI), London: […] Oxford University Press, 1897, →OCLC, page 5, lines 120–121:
- He is so fayre, withoutten les, / he semys full well to sytt on des.
- He is so fair, without any limit; his appearance shows well when he sits on the dais.
- 1593, Michael Drayton, “The Eighth Eglog”, in Idea the Shepheards Garland, […], London: […] [T. Orwin] for Thomas Woodcocke, […], →OCLC; republished as J[ohn] P[ayne] C[ollier], editor, Idea the Shepheards Garland, [London]: [Privately printed], 1870, →OCLC, page 64:
- This were as good as curds for our Jone, / When at a night we ſitten by the fire.
- After a long day of walking, it was good just to sit and relax.
- (intransitive, of a person) To move oneself into such a position.
- I asked him to sit.
- (intransitive, of an object) To occupy a given position.
- The temple has sat atop that hill for centuries.
- Jim's pet parrot sat on his left shoulder.
- 2019, VOA Learning English (public domain)
- (intransitive, copulative) To remain in a state of repose; to rest; to abide; to rest in any position or condition.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Numbers 32:6:
- And Moses said to […] the children of Reuben, Shall your brothren go to war, and shall ye sit here?
- c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:
- Like a demigod here sit I in the sky.
- (government) To be a member of a deliberative body.
- I currently sit on a standards committee.
- (law, government) Of a legislative or, especially, a judicial body such as a court, to be in session.
- In what city is the circuit court sitting for this session.
- To lie, rest, or bear; to press or weigh.
- 1651, Jer[emy] Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Francis Ashe […], →OCLC:
- The calamity sits heavy on us.
- To be adjusted; to fit.
- Your new coat sits well.
- c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]:
- This new and gorgeous garment, majesty, / Sits not so easy on me as you think.
- (intransitive, of an agreement or arrangement) To be accepted or acceptable; to work.
- How will this new contract sit with the workers?
- I don’t think it will sit well.
- The violence in these video games sits awkwardly with their stated aim of educating children.
- (transitive, causative) To cause to be seated or in a sitting posture; to furnish a seat to.
- Sit him in front of the TV and he might watch for hours.
- (transitive) To accommodate in seats; to seat.
- The dining room table sits eight comfortably.
- 1899, James Thomson, “The City of Dreadful Night”, in The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems, sat%20me%20weary%20on%20a%20pillar's%20base%2C%20%2F%20And%20leaned%20against%20the%20shaft%22&f=false page 43:
- I sat me weary on a pillar's base, / And leaned against the shaft
- (US, transitive, intransitive) To babysit.
- I'm going to sit for them on Thursday.
- I need to find someone to sit my kids on Friday evening for four hours.
- 1980, Stephen King, The Mist:
- I saw […] Mrs. Turman, who sometimes sat Billy when Steff and I went out […]
- 2024 March 19, Faith Hill, “Don’t Tell America the Babysitter’s Dead”, in The Atlantic:
- Sitting was a “quintessentially American experience,” Yasemin Besen-Cassino, a Montclair State University sociologist and the author of The Cost of Being a Girl: Working Teens and the Origins of the Gender Wage Gap, told me.
- (transitive, Australia, New Zealand, UK) To take, to undergo or complete (an examination or test).
- To cover and warm eggs for hatching, as a fowl; to brood; to incubate.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Jeremiah 17:11:
- The partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not.
- To take a position for the purpose of having some artistic representation of oneself made, such as a picture or a bust.
- I'm sitting for a painter this evening.
- To have position, as at the point blown from; to hold a relative position; to have direction.
- 1689, John Selden, Table Talk:
- like a good miller that knows how to grind, which way soever the wind sits
- 1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLC:
- Sits the wind in that quarter?
- (obsolete, transitive) To keep one's seat when faced with (a blow, attack); to endure, to put up with. [13th–19th c.]
- 1790, Amelia Opie, chapter 5, in Dangers of Coquetry, volume I:
- Louisa, who […] had but ill born the commencement of this conversation, could sit it no longer, and hastily throwing up the sash, complained of the intense heat of the room.
Conjugation
| infinitive | (to) sit | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| present tense | past tense | ||
| 1st-person singular | sit | sat, sate (dated, poetic) | |
| 2nd-person singular | sat, sate (dated, poetic), sattest† | ||
| 3rd-person singular | sits | sat, sate (dated, poetic) | |
| plural | sit | ||
| subjunctive | sit | sat, sate (dated, poetic) | |
| imperative | sit | — | |
| participles | sitting | sat, sitten (archaic, dialectal) | |
Conjugation of sit
Quotations
- For quotations using this term, see Citations:sit.
Synonyms
- (be in a position in which the upper body is upright and the legs are supported): be seated
- (move oneself into such a position): be seated, sit down (from a standing position), sit up (from a prone position), take a seat
- (of an object: occupy a given position permanently): be, be found, be situated
- (be a member of a deliberative body):
- (be accepted): be accepted, be welcomed, be well received
- (to accommodate in seats): seat
Derived terms
Terms derived from sit (verb)
- apartment-sit
- babysit
- besit
- catsit
- dogsit
- face-sit
- fence-sit
- flat-sit
- from where one is sitting
- granny-sit
- house-sit
- if I fits, I sits
- if it fits, I sits
- is anyone sitting here
- petsit
- plant-sit
- saw off the branch one is sitting on
- sit about
- sit-and-go
- sit-and-wait predator
- sit around
- sit back
- sit by
- sit-by-the-fire
- sit dead-red
- sit down
- sit for
- sit idly by
- sit-in
- sit in
- sit in for
- sit in judgement
- sit in judgment
- sit-inner
- sit in on
- sit in the wheels
- sit in with
- sit-lie
- sit loose
- sit loosely
- sit off
- sit on
- sit-on
- sit on death's doorstep
- sit one's ass down
- sit one's butt down
- sit on it
- sit on one's arse
- sit on one's ass
- sit on one's hands
- sit on one's laurels
- sit on someone's wheel
- sit on the fence
- sit-on-top
- sit-out
- sit out
- sit over
- sit right
- sit shiva
- sit-ski
- sit-skier
- sit still
- sittable
- sit the fence
- sit there like a lemon
- sit through
- sit tight
- sitting member
- sitting-out area
- sitting-rising test
- sitting-room
- sitting room
- sitting table
- sitting toilet
- sitting volleyball
- sit under
- sit up
- sit-up
- sit-up-and-beg
- sit-upon
- sit upon
- sit up with
- sit well
- sit with
- take sitting down
- trip sit
- unsittable
- where you stand depends on where you sit
Translations
of a person, be in a position in which the upper body is upright and the legs are supported
|
move oneself into such a position — see sit down
of an object: occupy a given position permanently
to be a member of a deliberative body
of an agreement or arrangement, to be accepted
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
|
Noun
sit (plural sits)
- An act of sitting.
- (mining) Subsidence of the roof of a coal mine.
- (rare, Buddhism) An event, usually lasting one full day or more, where the primary goal is to sit in meditation.
Translations
Etymology 2
Noun
sit (plural sits)
- (informal) Short for situation.
- 2012, Gail Shisler, For Country and Corps: The Life of General Oliver P. Smith:
- The increasing scope of the disaster was relayed in short, terse sentences whose brevity does not conceal the unfolding nightmare. […] In mid-afternoon at 1600: “Sit is getting worse; need help badly,” “have considerable number of wounded that are unable to evacuate.”
Related terms
Multiple parts of speech
sit
- (stenoscript) Abbreviation of situation and related forms of that word (situational, situationally, etc.)
Anagrams
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Etymology
Formally from Dutch zitten (“to sit”), from Frankish *sittjan, from Proto-Germanic *sitjaną. Semantically from a merger of the former and related Dutch zetten (“to set, put”), from Proto-Germanic *satjaną, whence also Afrikaans set (chiefly in compounds). Both Germanic verbs are eventually from Proto-Indo-European *sed-.
Pronunciation
Verb
sit (present sit, present participle sittende, past participle gesit)
- (intransitive) to sit; to be in a sitting position (usually used with op, binne or in)
- Sy sit en sein vir haar dogtertjie.
- She is sitting and gesturing to her young daughter.
- (intransitive) to sit; to sit down to move into a sitting position
- Sit asseblief.
- Please sit down.
- (transitive) to place, to put
- Ek sit jou sleutels op die tafel.
- I am putting your keys on the table.
- (transitive) to deposit
- Ek gaan al my geld in die bank sit.
- I am going to deposit all my money in the bank.
Usage notes
- Sit and its derivatives are usually more commonly used than plaas for their overlapping senses, but are sometimes considered less formal than plaas, especially in formal writing.
Synonyms
Derived terms
Related terms
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Etymology
Pronunciation
Noun
sit m (plural sits)
Derived terms
- sit blanc
- sit pintat
- sita golanegre
Further reading
- “sit” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
Pronoun
sit n (common sin, plural sine)
See also
| Number | Person | Type | Nominative | Oblique | Possessive | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| common | neuter | plural | |||||
| Singular | First | – | jeg | mig | min | mit | mine |
| Second | modern / informal | du | dig | din | dit | dine | |
| formal (uncommon) | De | Dem | Deres | ||||
| Third | masculine (person) | han | ham | hans | |||
| feminine (person) | hun | hende | hendes | ||||
| common (noun) | den | dens | |||||
| neuter (noun) | det | dets | |||||
| indefinite | man | en | ens | ||||
| reflexive | – | sig | sin | sit | sine | ||
| Plural | First | modern | vi | os | vores | ||
| archaic / formal | vor | vort | vore | ||||
| Second | – | I | jer | jeres | |||
| Third | – | de | dem | deres | |||
| reflexive | – | sig | |||||
Danish personal pronouns
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Pronunciation
Adverb
sit
- (colloquial or dialectal) Alternative form of sitten
Romanization
sit
- Romanization of 𐍃𐌹𐍄
Pronunciation
Adverb
sit
- Alternative form of siit
References
- Olga I. Konkova, Nikita A. Dyachkov (2014) Inkeroin Keel: Пособие по Ижорскому Языку, →ISBN, page 35
Etymology
Related to Veps sid'.
Adverb
sit
Pronunciation
- (Classical Latin) IPA(key): /sit/, [s̠ɪt̪]
- (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /sit/, [sit̪]
Verb
sit
- third-person singular present active subjunctive of sum (be)
References
- sit in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
Verb
sit
- inflection of sist:
- (with the particle lai) third-person singular imperative of sist
- (with the particle lai) third-person plural imperative of sist
Etymology
Compare the colloquial and dialectal Finnish "sit" (the standard form of which is sitten).
Adverb
sit
References
- Pertti Virtaranta, Raija Koponen (2009) “sit”, in Marja Torikka, editor, Karjalan kielen sanakirja, Helsinki: Kotus, →ISSN
Anagrams
Etymology
Compare Southern Ohlone sit (“tooth”).
Noun
sit
References
Verb
sit
- present of sitja and sitta
- imperative of sitja
Pronunciation
Verb
sit
Verb
sit
- inflection of sitja:
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
Inherited from Proto-Slavic *sitъ.
Noun
sit m inan
Declension
Declension of sit
Etymology 2
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
Noun
sit n
Further reading
Etymology
Noun
sit n (plural situri)
- picturesque landscape
- site of a city
- archeological site
- (Internet) website
- Synonym: site
Declension
Etymology 1
Inherited from Proto-Slavic *sytъ, from Proto-Balto-Slavic *sā́ˀtas, from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂-.
Adjective
sȉt (Cyrillic spelling си̏т, definite sȉtī, comparative sitiji)
Declension
| singular | masculine | feminine | neuter | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| nominative | sit | sita | sito | |
| genitive | sita | site | sita | |
| dative | situ | sitoj | situ | |
| accusative | inanimate animate |
sit sita |
situ | sito |
| vocative | sit | sita | sito | |
| locative | situ | sitoj | situ | |
| instrumental | sitim | sitom | sitim | |
| plural | masculine | feminine | neuter | |
| nominative | siti | site | sita | |
| genitive | sitih | sitih | sitih | |
| dative | sitim(a) | sitim(a) | sitim(a) | |
| accusative | site | site | sita | |
| vocative | siti | site | sita | |
| locative | sitim(a) | sitim(a) | sitim(a) | |
| instrumental | sitim(a) | sitim(a) | sitim(a) | |
positive indefinite forms
| singular | masculine | feminine | neuter | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| nominative | siti | sita | sito | |
| genitive | sitog(a) | site | sitog(a) | |
| dative | sitom(u/e) | sitoj | sitom(u/e) | |
| accusative | inanimate animate |
siti sitog(a) |
situ | sito |
| vocative | siti | sita | sito | |
| locative | sitom(e/u) | sitoj | sitom(e/u) | |
| instrumental | sitim | sitom | sitim | |
| plural | masculine | feminine | neuter | |
| nominative | siti | site | sita | |
| genitive | sitih | sitih | sitih | |
| dative | sitim(a) | sitim(a) | sitim(a) | |
| accusative | site | site | sita | |
| vocative | siti | site | sita | |
| locative | sitim(a) | sitim(a) | sitim(a) | |
| instrumental | sitim(a) | sitim(a) | sitim(a) | |
positive definite forms
| singular | masculine | feminine | neuter | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| nominative | sitiji | sitija | sitije | |
| genitive | sitijeg(a) | sitije | sitijeg(a) | |
| dative | sitijem(u) | sitijoj | sitijem(u) | |
| accusative | inanimate animate |
sitiji sitijeg(a) |
sitiju | sitije |
| vocative | sitiji | sitija | sitije | |
| locative | sitijem(u) | sitijoj | sitijem(u) | |
| instrumental | sitijim | sitijom | sitijim | |
| plural | masculine | feminine | neuter | |
| nominative | sitiji | sitije | sitija | |
| genitive | sitijih | sitijih | sitijih | |
| dative | sitijim(a) | sitijim(a) | sitijim(a) | |
| accusative | sitije | sitije | sitija | |
| vocative | sitiji | sitije | sitija | |
| locative | sitijim(a) | sitijim(a) | sitijim(a) | |
| instrumental | sitijim(a) | sitijim(a) | sitijim(a) | |
comparative forms
| singular | masculine | feminine | neuter | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| nominative | najsitiji | najsitija | najsitije | |
| genitive | najsitijeg(a) | najsitije | najsitijeg(a) | |
| dative | najsitijem(u) | najsitijoj | najsitijem(u) | |
| accusative | inanimate animate |
najsitiji najsitijeg(a) |
najsitiju | najsitije |
| vocative | najsitiji | najsitija | najsitije | |
| locative | najsitijem(u) | najsitijoj | najsitijem(u) | |
| instrumental | najsitijim | najsitijom | najsitijim | |
| plural | masculine | feminine | neuter | |
| nominative | najsitiji | najsitije | najsitija | |
| genitive | najsitijih | najsitijih | najsitijih | |
| dative | najsitijim(a) | najsitijim(a) | najsitijim(a) | |
| accusative | najsitije | najsitije | najsitija | |
| vocative | najsitiji | najsitije | najsitija | |
| locative | najsitijim(a) | najsitijim(a) | najsitijim(a) | |
| instrumental | najsitijim(a) | najsitijim(a) | najsitijim(a) | |
superlative forms
Further reading
- “sit”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2025
Etymology 2
Inherited from Proto-Slavic *sitъ.
Noun
sȋt m (Cyrillic spelling си̑т)
Further reading
- “sit”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2025
Etymology 1
From Proto-Slavic *sytъ.
Pronunciation
Adjective
sȉt (comparative bȍlj sȉt, superlative nȁjbolj sȉt)
Etymology 2
From Proto-Slavic *sitъ.
Alternative forms
Noun
sȋt m inan
Further reading
- “sit”, in Slovarji Inštituta za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša ZRC SAZU (in Slovene), 2014–2025
Noun
sit
Etymology
Noun
sit
Derived terms
Etymology
From Proto-Finnic *sitta, from Proto-Uralic *sitta. Cognates include Finnish sitta.
Noun
sit
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