sit

sit

1. (international standards) ISO 639-2 & ISO 639-5 language code for Sino-Tibetan languages.

• enPR: sĭt, IPA^(key): /sɪt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪt

From Middle English sitten, from Old English sittan, from Proto-West Germanic *sittjan, from Proto-Germanic *sitjaną, from Proto-Indo-European *sed- (“sit”).

sit (third-person singular simple present sits, present participle sitting, simple past sat or (dated, poetic) sate, past participle sat or (archaic, dialectal) sitten)

1. (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.

   You're finishing the chowder if you sit there (motionless) all evening!

2. (intransitive, of a person) To move oneself into such a position.

   I asked him to sit.

3. (intransitive, of an object) To occupy a given position.

   The dishes are still sitting on the table!

   The temple has sat atop that hill for centuries.

   Jim's pet parrot sat on his left shoulder.

   • 2019, VOA Learning English (public domain)

     The Yellow Sea sits between the Korean Peninsula and China.

4. (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.

5. (government) To be a member of a deliberative body.

   I currently sit on a standards committee.

6. (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?

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. (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.

10. (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.

11. (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

12. (US, ambitransitive) 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^[1]:

      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.

13. (transitive, Australia, New Zealand, UK) To take, to undergo or complete (an examination or test).
15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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?

18. (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.

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:sit.

• (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

sit (plural sits)

1. An act of sitting.
2. (mining) Subsidence of the roof of a coal mine.
3. (rare, Buddhism) An event, usually lasting one full day or more, where the primary goal is to sit in meditation.

sit (plural sits)

1. (informal) Clipping of 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.”

• sitrep

sit

1. (Stenoscript) Abbreviation of situation, situational, situationally, or etc..

• 'tis, its, its', IST, TIs, t'is, tis, STI, TIS, is't, ist, it's, -ist, 'its, Ist, TSI, ITS, S.T.I.

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-.

• IPA^(key): /sət/

• Audio:

  (file)

sit (present sit, present participle sittende, past participle gesit)

1. (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.

2. (intransitive) to sit; to sit down to move into a sitting position

   Sit asseblief.

   Please sit down.

3. (transitive) to place, to put

   Ek sit jou sleutels op die tafel.

   I am putting your keys on the table.

4. (transitive) to deposit

   Ek gaan al my geld in die bank sit.

   I am going to deposit all my money in the bank.

• 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.

• (to deposit): deponeer, plaas
• (to place): neersit, plaas

• afsit
• besit
• neersit
• opsit
• sitplek

• beset

Onomatopoeic

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [ˈsit]

sit m (plural sits)

1. bunting (bird of the genus Emberiza)

• “sit”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007

sit n (common sin, plural sine)

1. (reflexive possessive) third-person sg pronoun, meaning his/her/its (own)

• IPA^(key): /ˈsit/, [ˈs̠it̪]
• Rhymes: -it
• Syllabification^(key): sit
• Hyphenation^(key): sit

sit

1. (colloquial or dialectal) alternative form of sitten

sit

1. romanization of 𐍃𐌹𐍄

• (Ala-Laukaa) IPA^(key): /ˈsit/, [ˈs̠id]
• (Soikkola) IPA^(key): /ˈsit/, [ˈʃid̥]
• Rhymes: -it
• Hyphenation: sit

sit

1. alternative form of siit
   • 2008, “Läkkäämmä omal viisii [We're speaking [our] own way]”, in Inkeri‎^[2], volume 4, number 69, St. Petersburg, page 12:

     Tämä on Savimäen kylä a sit ono veel Hammalan kylä.

     This is the Savimäki village and then there is also the Hammala village.

• Olga I. Konkova, Nikita A. Dyachkov (2014) Inkeroin Keel: Пособие по Ижорскому Языку‎^[3], →ISBN, page 35

Related to Veps sid'.

sit

1. here

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈsɪt]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈsit̪]

sit

1. third-person singular present active subjunctive of sum
   • 4th century, St Jerome, Vulgate, Tobit 3:23

     Sit nomen tuum Deus Israhel benedictum in saecula. (Be thy name, O God of Israel, blessed for ever.)

• "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)

sit

1. inflection of sist:
   1. second/third-person singular present indicative
   2. third-person plural present indicative
   3. second-person singular imperative
2. (with the particle lai) third-person singular imperative of sist
3. (with the particle lai) third-person plural imperative of sist

Compare the colloquial and dialectal Finnish "sit" (the standard form of which is sitten).

sit

1. then
2. when

• Pertti Virtaranta, Raija Koponen (2009) “sit”, in Marja Torikka, editor, Karjalan kielen sanakirja‎^[4], Helsinki: Kotus, →ISSN

• IPA^(key): (before 13^th CE) /ˈs̠iːt/

sīt

1. second-person plural present imperative of sīn / wësen

Compare Southern Ohlone sit (“tooth”).

sit

1. (plural only) teeth, set of teeth
2. (with himmen) a tooth

• María de los Angeles Colós, José Guzman, and John Peabody Harrington (1930s) Chochenyo Field Notes (Survey of California and Other Indian Langauges)‎^[5], Unpublished

sit

1. present of sitja and sitta
2. imperative of sitja

• IPA^(key): /sit/

sit

1. third-person singular present indicative of sittan

sit

1. inflection of sitja:
   1. first-person singular present active indicative
   2. second-person singular present active imperative

• IPA^(key): /ˈɕit/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -it
• Syllabification: sit

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *sitъ.

sit m inan

1. any rush of the genus Juncus

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

sit n

1. genitive plural of sito

• sit in Polish dictionaries at PWN
• sit in PWN's encyclopedia

Borrowed from French site or English site.

sit n (plural situri)

1. picturesque landscape
2. site of a city
3. archeological site
4. (Internet) website

   Synonym: site

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *sytъ, from Proto-Balto-Slavic *sā́ˀtas, from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂-.

• IPA^(key): /sît/

sȉt (Cyrillic spelling си̏т, definite sȉtī, comparative sitiji)

1. sated, full

   Antonyms: gladan, lačan

• “sit”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2025

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *sitъ.

• IPA^(key): /sîːt/

sȋt m animacy unspecified (Cyrillic spelling си̑т)

1. rush (genus Juncus)

• “sit”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2025

From Proto-Slavic *sytъ.

• IPA^(key): /sít/

sȉt (comparative bȍlj sȉt, superlative nȁjbolj sȉt)

1. sated, full

From Proto-Slavic *sitъ.

• site, sȋtje, sitína

sȋt m inan

1. rush (genus Juncus)

• “sit”, in Slovarji Inštituta za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša ZRC SAZU (in Slovene), 2014–2025

sit

1. tooth

From English shit.

sit

1. (vulgar) faeces, shit.

• sithaus

From Proto-Finnic *sitta, from Proto-Uralic *sitta. Cognates include Finnish sitta.

sit

1. shit