sb. Forms: see below. Pl. will-o’-the-wisps, also wills-o’-the-wisp. [orig. Will with the wisp: see WILL sb.3 and WISP sb. Cf. JACK-O’-LANTERN, and, for the second element, G. irrwisch.]
1. = IGNIS FATUUS; fig. a thing (rarely a person) that deludes or misleads by means of fugitive appearances.
α. 7–9 Will with the or a wisp (whisp); 7 -with-wispe, with th’ wisp, 9 wit or wi’ t’ wisp; also 7 Will the Wispe.
1608. Day, Law Trickes, V. H 2 b. I haue playd Will with the wispe with my brother, and haue led him vp and downe the maze of good fellowship.
1623. ‘Jack Dawe,’ Vox Graculi, 45. When you are mis-led with lust (that Will-with wispe,) to those caues of Cockatrises.
16[?]. in Mad Pranks Robin Goodfellow (Percy Soc.), p. xviii. Some call him Robin Goodfellow,… some againe doe tearme him oft by name of Will the Wispe.
1654. R. Whitlock, Ζωοτομια, 159. Ignes fatui, Fooles fires, wills with a wisp.
1729. Phil. Trans., XXXVI. 211. Thus far, what I could learn concerning the Will with a Whisp, as it hath been observed in the Plains.
1832. J. Hodgson, in Raine, Mem. (1858), II. 291. Ignis Fatuus or Will-with-the-wisp.
1839. Longf., Hyperion, IV. ii. His imagination is continually lantern-led by some will-with-a-whisp in the shape of a lady’s stomacher.
β. 7–9 will of the wisp, o’ the wisp (8 o’ th’, 9 o-the-); also with hyphens and one or two capitals.
1661. Blount, Glossogr. (ed. 2), Ignis Fatuus, foolish fire, or (as the Country people call it) Will of the Wisp.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1768), V. 115. Knowledge by theory only is a vague uncertain light: a Will o’ the Wisp.
1760. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, III. xxxi. All the polemical writings in divinity are not as clear and demonstrative as those upon a Will o’ the Wisp, or any other sound part of philosophy.
1806–7. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life (1826), XVII. i. Those Wills-o-the-wisp, the Reviewers.
1831. Scott, Cast. Dang., xi. Through what extraordinary labyrinths this Love, this Will-of-the-Wisp, guides his votaries.
1840. Dickens, Old C. Shop, l. I’ll be a Will o’ the Wisp, now here, now there.
1840. Thackeray, Paris Sk.-bk. (1869), 190. No light except that of … the wicked … wills-o’-the-wisp, as they gambol among the marshes.
1858. Greener, Gunnery, 208. Proof positive, that we have been on the wrong scent, and running after a ‘Will o’ the Wisp.’
1879. Huxley, Sensation, Sci. & Cult. (1881), 247. The metaphysical Will-o’-the-wisps generated in the marshes of literature and theology.
1918. W. R. Inge, Philos. Plotinus, I. 188. The utterly unscientific notion of an automatic ‘law of progress,’ that strange will-o’-the-wisp of nineteenth-century thought.
γ. 7 will-a-wisp, 8 will o’ whisp, 9 will-o-wisp (or o’); also with one or two capitals.
1679. Oldham, Sat. Jesuits, III. 331. White Sheets for Ghosts, and Will-a-wisps have past For Souls in Purgatory unreleast.
1738. Mrs. E. Montagu, Corr. (1906), I. 29. Will o’ Whisp never led the bewildered traveller over hedge and ditch as a moon does us country folk.
1829. A. Cunningham, Magic Bridle, 363, in Anniversary, 149. Dank will-o’-wisp sank midst the mire.
1863. Meredith, Lett. (1912), I. 114. Young Cupid was he called of old: That Will o’ Wisp incorporate.
δ. 7–8 Will in the Wisp (8 i’the whisp).
1689. Irish Hudibras, To Rdr. 7 b. [They] made him skip the Bogs like a Will in the Wisp.
1706. Vanbrugh, Mistake, I. (1734), 16. What a Shame they should be allow’d to play Will in the Wisp with Men of Honour.
1762. Foote, Orator, I. i. A Will in the Wisp, to confound, perplex, and bewilder you.
1768. Tucker, Lt. Nat., II. I. 132. We should see them dance about like so many Will i’the whisps.
ε. 7–9 Willy-wisp (7 Wispe), 8 Willy wi’ (Willie with) or and the wisp, Willy’s wisp.
1628. Mad Pranks Robin Goodfellow (Percy Soc.), 21. Wenches, that doe smile and lispe Use to call me Willy Wispe.
1679. Jas. Gordon, Reformed Bp., 250. I do firmly believe, That … He would have chosen rather to have sent down some English Doctors to have govern’d us … than have permitted any of those Willy-wisps to jump into these empty Chairs.
1727. Willies with the Wisps [see SPUNKIE 1].
1756. Collect. Sc. Poems by Pennecuik, etc., 23. Travelling of late in fogs and thro’ thick mist, Without a guide, save Willy wi’ the wisp.
a. 1761. [S. Haliburton & Hepburn], Mem. Magopico, xiii. (ed. 2), 39. Plumbino is Willie-with-the-wisp; Magopico a flash of wild-fire.
1790. Morison, Poems, 38. Willy’s wisp wi’ whirlin’ cant Their blazes ca’, That’s nought but vapours frae a stank.
1828. Craven Gloss., Willy-wit-wisp, called also a Willy-wisp; an ignis fatuus, or Jack with a lantern.
b. attrib.
1860. W. W. Reade, Liberty Hall, II. 44. A fluttering, shadowy, will-o-the-wisp style.
1873. All Year Round, 5 July, 226/1. Strange will-o’-the-wisp lights begin to flutter about the cordage.
1883. Black, Shandon Bells, xxi. Kitty’s will-o’-the-wisp flashes of petulance.
2. An alga, Nostoc commune, so called from the inexplicable suddenness of its appearance.
1866. in Treas. Bot.
Hence † Will-o’-the-wisp v. trans., to lend astray like a will-o’-the-wisp; Will-o’-the-wispish, -wispy adjs., of the nature of a will-o’-the-wisp.
1660. R. Wild, Iter Boreale, ix. Dark-Lanthorn Language, and his peep-boe play, *Will-E-Wispt Lambert’s New-Lights out o’ th’ way.
1698. Fryer, Acc. E. India & P., 375. But to return to our Men of Learning, from whence we have been Will-ith-whisped.
1866. Carlyle, Remin. (1881), II. 177. His Mrs. Taylor too, a very *will-o’-wispish ‘iridescence’ of a creature.
a. 1873. Lytton, Ken. Chillingly, I. ii. The boy … became impish and Will-of-the-Wisp-ish.
1886. Miss Broughton, Dr. Cupid, xxxi. The *Will-of-the-wispy laughter of his eyes.
