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A '''wit''' is one gifted at cunning repartee, [[pun]]s and wordplay, as in ''If they said he was a wit, they'd be half right''.

It is also used to describe a more refined form of humour. Wit, as opposed to its coarser cousins such as ''ribaldry'', was particularly popular in [[Renaissance]] [[Italy]]. 

==Examples of Italian Renaissance Wit==

:A man when asked why the hair on his head was white, and yet his beard was black replied that this was not particularly surprising as the hair in his beard was twenty years younger.

:A jailed man jailed for gamling complained that "The mayor has imprisoned me for gambling with my own money. What on earth would he have done to me if I had gambled with his?"