ruth
nounUK /ɹuːθ/ · US /ɹuθ/
Etymology
From Middle English ruthe, reuthe, reuþe, reowthe, rewthe (“compassion, pity, sympathy; mercy; grief, sorrow; cause or event of pity or sorrow; lamentation; calamity, trouble; distress; regret, remorse; cruelty, ill treatment”), from reu, reuen (“to feel compassion or pity; to regret, rue; etc.”) + -th, -the (suffix denoting a condition, quality, state of being, etc.), possibly influenced by an early Scandinavian language (compare Old Norse hrygð, hryggð (“affliction, grief, sorrow, ruth”), from the Proto-Germanic word indicated below). Reuen is derived from Old English hrēowan (“to grieve; to regret, rue; to repent”), from Proto-West Germanic *hreuwan (“to cause pain; to regret”), from Proto-Germanic *hrewwaną (“to cause regret, rue; to feel sorrow, grieve”); further etymology uncertain, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *krew(H)-, possibly related to Proto-Indo-European *krewh₂- (“blood”) and *krows- (“to fall, beat, break, bruise”). By surface analysis, rue (“to regret; etc.”) + -th (suffix forming abstract nouns from verbs).
1
Archaic Sorrow for the misery of another person; compassion, mercy, pity.
- The dead mans corps hath made ſome Serpents weépe, / Such rewth may ryſe in beaſts of bloudy race: / And yet can man (which bragges aboue the reſt) / Uſe wracke [vengeance] for rewth? can murder like him beſt?1575, Jacques du Fouilloux, “The Hare, to the Hunter”, in George Gascoigne, transl., The Noble Art of Venerie or Hunting. […], London: […] Thomas Purfoot, published 1611, →OCLC, page 177:
- It vvas my fortune to be at Rome, vpon a day that one Catena, a notorious high-vvay thief, vvas executed: at his ſtrangling no man of the company ſeemed to be mooved to any ruth; but vvhen he came to be quartered, the Executioner gave no blovve that vvas not accompanied vvith a pitteous voyce, and heartie exclamation, as if every man had had a feeling ſympathie, or lent his ſenſes to the poore mangled vvretch.1603, Michel de Montaigne, “Of Crueltie”, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC, page 249:
4 more examples
- Look homevvard Angel novv, and melt vvith ruth. / And, O ye Dolphin, vvaft the haples youth.1637 (date written; published 1638), John Milton, “Lycidas”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, […], London: […] Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, […], published 1646, →OCLC, page 64:
- [O]ft they ſnatch the Pen, / As if inſpir'd, and in a Theſpian Rage; / Then vvrite, and blot, as vvould your Ruth engage.1748, James Thomson, “Canto I”, in The Castle of Indolence: […], London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, stanza LII, page 27:
- For if my deſultory ſtrain vvith ruth / And indignation make thine eyes o'erflovv, / Alas! vvhat comfort could thy anguiſh ſooth, / Shouldſt thou th'extent of human folly knovv.1774, James Beattie, The Minstrel; or, The Progress of Genius. A Poem. Book the Second, London: […] Edward and Charles Dilly, […]; Edinburgh: William Creech, […], →OCLC, stanza XXX, page 16:
- And he, that Ancient Man, whose sight / Has long been quenched by age's night, / Upon whose wrinkled brow alone, / Nor ruth, nor mercy's trace is shown, […]1808 February 22, Walter Scott, “Canto Second. The Convent.”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: […] J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, […]; London: William Miller, and John Murray, →OCLC, stanza XIX, page 98:
2
Archaic Regret, remorse, repentance.
- But, what afflicts my peace with keenest ruth, / Is, that I have my inner self abused, / Forgone the home delight of constant truth, / And clear and open soul, so prized in fearless youth.1798, [William Wordsworth], “The Female Vagrant”, in Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems, London: […] J[ohn] & A[rthur] Arch, […], →OCLC, page 83:
- I seek these anchorites, not in ruth, / To curse and to deny your truth; […]1855 April, Matthew Arnold, “Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse”, in New Poems, London: Macmillan and Co., published 1867, →OCLC, page 212:
2 more examples
- Now to your grave shall friend and stranger / With ruth and some with envy come: […]1896, A[lfred] E[dward] Housman, “[Poem] XLIV”, in A Shropshire Lad, New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company, The Bodley Head, published 1906, →OCLC, stanza 6, page 68:
- Then rage left him, || and his wrath sickened, / his mood faltered. || He mourned too late / in ruth for the rending || of the Round Table.c. 1937 (date written), J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “[Canto] III: Of Sir Lancelot, who Abode in Benwick”, in Christopher Tolkien, editor, The Fall of Arthur, 1st American edition, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, published 2013, →ISBN, page 38, lines 87–89:
3
Obsolete Matter for regret or sorrow; calamity, ruin; also, occasion for regret or sorrow; (countable) an instance of this; a disaster, a pitiful thing.
- They ſay it is a ruth to ſee thy louer neede, / But you can ſee me vveepe, but you can ſee me bleede: / And neuer ſhrinke nor ſhame, ne ſhed no teare at all, / You make my vvounds your ſelfe, and fill them vp vvith gall: […]1589, attributed to George Puttenham, “Of Figures Sententious, otherwise Called Rhetoricall”, in The Arte of English Poesie. […], London: […] Richard Field, […], →OCLC, 3rd booke (Of Ornament), pages 182–183:
- Ah deareſt God (quoth he) that is great vvoe, / And vvondrous ruth to all, that ſhall it heare.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 6, page 463:
4 more examples
- Yet novv I doe repent me of his ruth, / And vviſh that I had neuer vvronged him ſo: […]1594, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nash[e], The Tragedie of Dido Queene of Carthage: […], London: […] Widdowe Orwin, for Thomas Woodcocke, […], →OCLC, Act III, signature D2, recto:
- Svveet adieu, Ile keepe my oath, / Patiently to beare my vvroath.c. 1596–1598 (date written), W[illiam] Shakespeare, The Excellent History of the Merchant of Venice. […] (First Quarto), [London]: […] J[ames] Roberts [for Thomas Heyes], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ix], signature E2, recto:
- Ecce Homo [behold the man, i.e., Jesus], ſaith, [Pontius] Pilate firſt, A man he is, as vve are: And vvere he but a man; nay, vvere he not a man, but ſome poore dumb creature, it vvere great ruth to ſee him ſo handled, as he vvas.1604 April 15 (date delivered; Gregorian calendar), Lancelot Andrewes, “[Sermons Preached vpon Good-Friday.] A Sermon Preached before the King’s Maiestie, at Whitehall, on the VI. of Aprill, A.D. MDCIIII, Being Good-Friday.”, in XCVI. Sermons […], London: […] George Miller, for Richard Badger, published 1629, →OCLC, page 356:
- Come Nouice, come, ſee here the fall of youth, / Begun in pleaſure, but vvouen vp in rueth: […]1615, Richarde Brathwaite [i.e., Richard Braithwait], “The Authors Morall to His Ciuell Diuell”, in A Strappado for the Diuell. […], London: […] I. B[eale] for Richard Redmer […], →OCLC, page 48:
4
Obsolete Distress, misery, sorrow.
- High on a hill a goodly Cedar grevve, / Of vvondrous length, and ſtreight proportion, / […] / Shortly vvithin her inmoſt pith there bred / A little vvicked vvorme, perceiu'd of none, / That on her ſap and vitall moyſture fed: / Thenceforth her garland ſo much honoured / Began to die, (O great ruth for the ſame) / And her faire lockes fell from her loftie head, / That ſhortly balde, and bared ſhe became.1591, Ed[mund] Sp[enser], “Visions of the Worlds Vanitie”, in Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. […], London: […] William Ponsonbie, […], →OCLC, stanza 7, signature [B4], verso:
- Here lyes to each her parents ruth, / Mary, the daughter of their youth: / Yet, all heauens gifts, being heauens due, / It makes the father, leſſe, to rue.1616, Beniamin Ionson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Epigrammes. [XXII. On My First Daughter.]”, in The Workes of Beniamin Ionson (First Folio), London: […] Will[iam] Stansby, →OCLC, page 774:
1 more example
- Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth, / In thy heart the dew of youth, / On thy lips the smile of truth.1841 (date written), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “[Miscellaneous.] Maidenhood.”, in Ballads and Other Poems, 2nd edition, Cambridge, Mass.: […] John Owen, published 1842, →OCLC, stanza 14, page 128: