Hist. Also 3 witene imot; 6 wytena gemote, 7 weidenagamoot, 7–9 wittena-gemot(e, (9 witana-). [OE. witena ʓemót assembly of wise men: see WITAN, WITE sb.1, and GEMOT(E, MOOT sb.1] The assembly of the WITAN, the national council of Anglo-Saxon times; transf. of modern parliaments or other deliberative assemblies.
[a. 900. trans. Bæda’s Hist., III. v. On ʓemote hiora witena.]
c. 1000. Ælfric, Gram., viii. (Z.), 30. Haec sinodus, þis witena ʓemot.
1050. O. E. Chron. (MS. C). Þa hæfde Eadwerd cing witena ʓemot on Lunden lo midlencten.
c. 1205. Lay., 11545. Þet hustinge wes god, hit wes witene-imot.
1591. Lambarde, Archeion (1635), 252. The word Witena … doth include the Nobilitie and Commons, because they be Counsellors of the Realme,… in respect whereof the assembling of them, was of some called Wytena Gemote.
1614. Selden, Titles Hon., 226. Their Wittenagemots or Mikel Synods.
1656. Harrington, Oceana, 35, marg. Weidenagamoots.
1660. Waterhouse, Arms & Arm., 181. The Wittenagemote and great Councel of our wisdom, in the preamble to the Statute of 43 Eliz. c. 12. acknowledgeth it to have been the policy of this Realm.
1769. Blackstone, Comm., IV. xxxiii. 405. The wittena-gemote, or commune concilium of the antient Germans.
1785. Cowper, Lett. to J. Hill, 22 Jan. Shall I derive no other advantage from the great Wittena-Gemot of the nation, than merely to read their debates?
1833. Southey, Lett. (1856). IV. 348. Having occasion to write to Sir T. Acland while he is attending the Witenagemot at Cambridge, I sent him a fact for the geologists.
1855. Browning, Old Pict. in Florence, xxxiii. A kind of sober Witana-gemot [rhyme bag ’em hot].
1899. Sir M. Foster, Presid. Addr. Brit. Assoc., 22. The first select Witenagemote of the science of the world.
