Wight vs. white: the ghost word and the law word

SUMMARYWight vs. white: the ghost word and the law word (Nov 5, 2026). Tito: "When looking into wight vs white there's a lot of drops." Label: CODE with Record links.
RECORD, the words: "wight" is Old English wiht, "a being, a creature, a thing" (as in "aught" and "naught," a-wiht and no-wiht); in later English and folklore a wight is a ghostly or uncanny being (the "barrow-wight" of the old tales). "White" is Old English hwīt, "bright, shining." The two come from different roots; the Isle of Wight is from Latin Vectis, another root again.
RECORD, when "white" became a legal people: early Virginia law sorted people as "Christian" or "English" against "negro" and "Indian" (e.g., 1662, 1670). Virginia's 1691 act "for suppressing outlying slaves" is among the first to make "white" a legal class: it punished "whatsoever English or other white man or woman being free" who married "a negroe, mulatto, or Indian man or woman" (Hening's Statutes at Large, vol. 3; verify page). From there "white" spread through colonial law

PATTERN"white" as a legal race appears in the late 1600s, invented on paper the same way "colored" and "negro" were later stamped on the nations

CODEwight / white: a ghost word beside the law word; the pale "being" that came from across the water

LENS (WW9)"white" is a paper identity, created by law in 1691; the people of the land were never in that category, and the category itself was a costume

OPENthe earliest use of "white" as a people in English law anywhere; what the nations called the newcomers in their own languages (e.g., spirit or ghost terms), with sources. Needs deep research.