Witty means funny in a quick, clever way. A witty remark, wonderfully witty, a witty reply.
The cleverness is the point — a witty remark works by turning language rather than by describing something funny, and it has to be fast. Wit is the noun, and it also means intelligence in the old sense: keep your wits about you, at your wits' end. Note witticism, meaning a single witty remark; and that dry wit is the British specialism and is delivered without any indication that a joke has occurred.
1adjectivewittyFunny in a quick, clever way.
“He gave a witty speech at the wedding that had everyone laughing.”
witty is a quality of clever humour.
Old English wittig comes from wit, meaning knowledge or intelligence — the same root as wise and the German wissen, to know. Wit meant intelligence for a thousand years before it narrowed to cleverness with words.
Proto-Indo-European
*weyd-
Proto-Germanic
*witagaz
Proto-West Germanic
*witīg
Old English
wittiġ
Middle English
witty
English, today
witty
Built from
From Middle English witty, witti, from Old English wittiġ, witiġ, ġewittiġ (“clever, wise”), from Proto-West Germanic witīg, witag, from Proto-Germanic witagaz, wītagaz (“knowing, wise, clever”), equivalent to wit + -y. Cognate with Middle Low German wittich, gewittich (“knowing, clever, wise, understanding”), German witzig (“funny, witty”), Norwegian Bokmål vettig, Norwegian Nynorsk vittig (“witty”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA