Writ

How to spell writ

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce writ

What does writ mean?

1. nounA formal written command issued by a court or other legal authority requiring a person to do or refrain from doing something.

Writ in a sentence

• The court issued a writ ordering the company to release the documents.

• The bailiff arrived to serve the writ on the debtor.

Where does writ come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a genuinely old native English word, descending directly from the Old English writ, which simply meant 'something written' or 'a piece of writing'. It comes from the same Germanic root as the verb write, originally writan, which carried the early sense of scratching or carving marks, since the first 'writing' the Anglo-Saxons knew was cut into wood or stone. Over time writ narrowed from any written document to the specific legal meaning it carries today: a formal written order issued in the name of a court or sovereign authority. The phrase 'writ large', meaning shown in a bigger or clearer form, preserves writ as the archaic past participle of write. Because the word keeps only a single short vowel and ends in a plain t, its spelling traps come not from complexity but from the temptation to add a silent e (as in 'write') that does not belong here.

How the word is built

• writ (Old English writ: something written, a written command); related to the verb write