wit

When cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,
And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring sail goes round;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.
- Alfred Tennyson, 'Song: The Owl'.

See citation on citation.

The very last trace of an infinitive verb in English. The expression 'to wit' is no longer analysable in Present-Day English, but the 'wit' part was once the infinitive of a verb meaning "know" whose gerund-participle survives in the adjectives 'witting' and 'unwitting', and whose first and third person singular present 'wot' survives in the archaic exclamations 'I wot not' and 'God wot'.

The reason present tense 'wot' lacks an -s in the third person is that it is, if you go far enough back up the Indo-European family tree, a perfect tense. The present tense meant see (cf. Latin video) and the perfect "I have seen" was used for the meaning "I know".

John Donne: in whom wit is truth.

For my part, I own, madam, wit loses its respect with me, when I see it in company with malice.
Sheridan, School for Scandal

“…nothing more than an incisive observation, humorously phrased and delivered with impeccable timing.”

I think its a pretty valuable attribute.

Sarcasm is said to be the lowest form, but I quite like it!