visit

From Middle English visiten, from Old French visiter, from Latin vīsitō, frequentative of vīsō (“behold, survey”), from videō (“see”). Cognate with Old Saxon wīsōn (“to visit, afflict”), archaic German weisen (“to visit, afflict”). Displaced native Old English sēċan (“to visit”) and sōcn (“a visit”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈvɪzɪt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪzɪt
• Hyphenation: vis‧it

visit (third-person singular simple present visits, present participle visiting, simple past and past participle visited)

1. (transitive) To habitually go to (someone in distress, sickness etc.) to comfort them. (Now generally merged into later senses, below.) [from 13th c.]
2. (transitive, intransitive) To go and meet (a person) as an act of friendliness or sociability. [from 14th c.]

   She decided to visit her grandparents for Christmas.

3. (transitive) Of God: to appear to (someone) to comfort, bless, or chastise or punish them. (Now generally merged into later senses, below.) [from 13th c.]
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 1:68:

     [God] hath visited and redeemed his people.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Ruth 1:6:

     Then she arose with her daughters in law, that she might return from the country of Moab: for she had heard in the country of Moab how that the Lord had visited his people in giving them bread.

4. (transitive, now rare) To punish, to inflict harm upon (someone or something). [from 14th c.]
   • 1788, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume 68:

     Her life was spared by the clemency of the emperor, but he visited the pomp and treasures of her palace.

5. (transitive) Of a sickness, misfortune etc.: to afflict (someone). [from 14th c.]
   • 1890, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough:

     There used to be a sharp contest as to where the effigy was to be made, for the people thought that the house from which it was carried forth would not be visited with death that year.

6. (transitive) To inflict punishment, vengeance for (an offense) on or upon someone. [from 14th c.]
   • 2007 September 25, Bungie, Halo 3, Microsoft Game Studios, Xbox 360, level/area: Terminal Six (Legendary):

     05-032 was right about one thing: there is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to visit utter annihilation on it.

   • 2011 December 2, John Mullan, The Guardian:

     If this were an Ibsen play, we would be thinking of the sins of one generation being visited upon another, he said.

7. (transitive) To go to (a shrine, temple etc.) for worship. (Now generally merged into later senses, below.) [from 14th c.]
8. (transitive) To go to (a place) for pleasure, on an errand, etc. [from 15th c.]
   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XIX, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     Nothing was too small to receive attention, if a supervising eye could suggest improvements likely to conduce to the common welfare. Mr. Gordon Burnage, for instance, personally visited dust-bins and back premises, accompanied by a sort of village bailiff, going his round like a commanding officer doing billets.

   • 2018, VOA Learning English > China's Melting Glacier Brings Visitors, Adds to Climate Concerns‎^[1]:

     Each year, millions of people visit the 4,570-meter-high Baishui Glacier in southern China.

• (go and meet): call on

visit (plural visits)

1. A single act of visiting.

   Next time you're in Manchester, give me a visit.

   We paid a quick visit to James on the way up to Scotland.

   • 1899, Stephen Crane, chapter 1, in Twelve O'Clock:

     There was some laughter, and Roddle was left free to expand his ideas on the periodic visits of cowboys to the town. “Mason Rickets, he had ten big punkins a-sittin' in front of his store, an' them fellers from the Upside-down-F ranch shot 'em up […].”

2. (medicine, insurance) A meeting with a doctor at their surgery or the doctor's at one's home.

• unvisited
• visitation
• visitor

vīsit

1. third-person singular present/perfect active indicative of vīsō