Word
Of
The
Day
wifty
wifty • \WIF-tee\ •
adjective
Wifty, a synonym of
ditzy, describes something or someone eccentrically silly or scatterbrained.
// The play features a
wifty character who starts out blissfully unaware of the conflict driving the plot but ultimately pulls it together to save the day.
See the entry >
Examples:
“When he dreams, he dreams about moving to Wyoming, which he has visited with his family. ... Sometimes when he talks about this, it sounds as ordinary and hard-boiled as a real estate appraisal; other times it can sound fantastical and
wifty and achingly naive ...” — Susan Orlean,
Joyride: A Memoir, 2025
Did you know?
Whence
wifty? Wordsmiths have been wondering for a while. The earliest print evidence of
wifty comes from the early 20th century, though the word was certainly being used in spoken English before that. The adjective suffix
-y is clear enough; when added to another word it can mean “full of” (as in “mudd
y), “having the character of” (think “wax
y”), “tending or inclined to” (as in “sleep
y”), etc. So what’s
wift? Well, that element could come from
whiff, which as a noun can refer to a quick puff or slight gust of air—a person described by the word
wifty might also, if unkindly, be called an airhead. Or perhaps the
wift is related to
waft, “to move or go lightly on a buoyant medium,” if it’s fair to say that the wifty among us have their heads in the clouds. Whatever once may have been known about it, the answer is now blowing in the wind.
