scathe

From Middle English scath, scathe [and other forms],^[1] from Old Norse skaði (“damage, harm; loss; death; murder”), from Proto-Germanic *skaþô (“damage, scathe; one who causes damage, injurer”, noun) (whence Old English sċeaþa, sċeaþu (“scathe, harm, injury”)), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)keh₁t- (“damage, harm”).^[2]

• IPA^(key): /skeɪð/, /skeɪθ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

  Audio:

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• Rhymes: -eɪð, -eɪθ

scathe (countable and uncountable, plural scathes) (archaic or British, dialectal)

1. (countable, uncountable) Damage, harm, hurt, injury.
   • c. 1588–1593 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The Most Lamentable Romaine Tragedie of Titus Andronicus: […] (First Quarto), London: […] Iohn Danter, and are to be sold by Edward White & Thomas Millington, […], published 1594, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:

     Therefore great Lords bee as your titles vvitnes, / Imperious, and impatient of your vvrongs, / And vvherein Rome hath done you any ſkath, / Let him make treable ſatisfaction.

   • 1606?, Michaell Drayton [i.e., Michael Drayton], “Ode 7”, in Poemes Lyrick and Pastorall. […], London: […] R. B[radock] for N[icholas] L[ing] and I[ohn] Flasket, →OCLC; republished in Poemes Lyrick and Pastorall (Publications of the Spenser Society, New Series; 4), [Manchester: […] Charles E. Simms] for the Spenser Society, 1891, →OCLC, page 22:

     [S]trong ale and noble cheere / t'aſſwage breeme winters ſcathes.

   • [1787, Robert Burns, “Death and Doctor Hornbook, a True Story”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. […], 2nd edition, volume I, Edinburgh: […] T[homas] Cadell, […], and William Creech, […], published 1793, →OCLC, page 56:

     I red ye weel, tak care o' ſkaith, / See there's a gully!

     The poem is written in Scots.]

   • 1864, Thomas Carlyle, “Friedrich Reduced to Straits; Cannot Maintain His Moldau Conquests against Prince Karl”, in History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great, volume IV, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book XV, page 60:

     Let us take the scathe and the scorn candidly home to us;—and try to prepare for doing better.

   • 1870, “The Latter End of All the Kin of the Giukings”, in Eiríkr Magnússon, William Morris, transl., Völsunga Saga. The Story of the Volsungs & Niblungs: With Certain Songs from the Elder Edda. […], London: F[rederick] S[tartridge] Ellis, […], →OCLC, page 161:

     Now telleth the tale concerning the sons of Gudrun, that she had arrayed their war-raiment in such wise, that no steel would bite thereon; and she bade them play not with stones or other heavy matters, for that it would be to their scathe if they did so.

   • 1870, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “[Poems.] The Burden of Nineveh.”, in Poems, London: F[rederick] S[tartridge] Ellis, […], →OCLC, stanza 2, pages 21–22:

     'Twas bull, 'twas mitred Minotaur, / A dead disbowelled mystery; / The mummy of a buried faith / Stark from the charnel without scathe, / Its wings stood for the light to bathe,— […]

2. (countable) Someone who, or something which, causes harm; an injurer.

   Synonym: (very rare) harmer

   • 1888, William Ernest Henley, “Life and Death (Echoes)”, in A Book of Verses, London: David Nutt […], →OCLC, canto XXXV, page 102:

     The pride I trampled is now my scathe, / For it tramples me again.

3. (countable, Scots law, obsolete) An injury or loss for which compensation is sought in a lawsuit; damage; also, expenses incurred by a claimant; costs.
4. (uncountable) Something to be mourned or regretted.
   • 1870, William Morris, “December: The Fostering of Aslaug”, in The Earthly Paradise: A Poem, part IV, London: F[rederick] S[tartridge] Ellis, […], →OCLC, page 57:

     They deemed it little scathe indeed / That her coarse homespun ragged weed / Fell off from her round arms and lithe / Laid on the door-post, that a withe / Of willows was her only belt; / And each as he gazed at her felt / As some gift had been given him.

• scath (Britain, dialectal or obsolete)
• skaith, scaith (Scotland)

• scaddle (Britain, dialectal or obsolete)

From Middle English scathen, skathen (“to harm; to cause loss; to assail, attack; to make war on; to defeat”) [and other forms],^[3] from Old Norse skaða (“to damage, harm; to hurt, injure”), from Proto-Germanic *skaþōną (“to damage, harm; to injure”) (whence Old English sceaþian, scaþan (“to harm, hurt, injure, scathe”)), from *skaþô (“damage, scathe; one who causes damage, injurer”, noun); see further at etymology 1.^[4]

Sense 2 (“to harm, injure, or destroy (someone or something) by fire, lightning, or some other heat source”) appears to derive from Paradise Lost by the English poet John Milton (1608–1674), perhaps influenced by scorch:^[4] see the 1667 quotation.

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /skeɪð/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪð

scathe (third-person singular simple present scathes, present participle scathing, simple past and past participle scathed) (transitive)

1. (archaic or Scotland) To harm or injure (someone or something) physically.

   Synonyms: damage, wound; see also Thesaurus:harm

   • c. 1591–1595 (date written), [William Shakespeare], […] Romeo and Iuliet. […] (Second Quarto), London: […] Thomas Creede, for Cuthbert Burby, […], published 1599, →OCLC, [Act I, scene v]:

     This trick may chance to ſcath you I knovv vvhat, / You muſt contrarie me, […]

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 612–615:

     Thir Glory witherd. As when Heavens Fire / Hath ſcath'd the Forreſt Oaks, or Mountain Pines, / With ſinged top their ſtately growth though bare / Stands on the blaſted Heath.

   • [1786, Robert Burns, “Epistle to J. R******, Enclosing Some Poems”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, volume I, Kilmarnock, Scotland: […] John Wilson, →OCLC; reprinted Kilmarnock, Scotland: […] James M‘Kie, 1867, →OCLC, page 219:

     Think, wicked Sinner, wha ye're ſkaithing: / It's juſt the Blue-gown badge an' claithing, / O' Saunts; tak that, ye lea'e them naething, / To ken them by, / Frae ony unregenerate Heathen, / Like you or I.

     The poem is written in Scots.]

   • 1813, Walter Scott, “Canto Fourth”, in Rokeby; a Poem, Edinburgh: […] [F]or John Ballantyne and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown; by James Ballantyne and Co., […], →OCLC, stanza XXVI, page 192:

     [T]wice Matilda came between / The carabine and Redmond's breast, / Just ere the spring his finger pressed. / […] / "It ne'er," he muttered, "shall be said, / That thus I scathed thee, haughty maid!"

   • 1815, Walter Scott, “Canto Fourth”, in The Lord of the Isles, a Poem, Edinburgh: […] [F]or Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown; by James Ballantyne and Co., […], →OCLC, stanza VIII, page 137:

     Seek not the giddy crag to climb, / To view the turret scathed by time; / It is a task of doubt and fear / To aught but goat or mountain-deer.

   • 1865, “Leech Book. Book II.”, in Oswald Cockayne, editor, Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England. Being a Collection of Documents, for the Most Part Never before Printed, Illustrating the History of Science in this Country before the Norman Conquest. […] (Rerum Britannicarum Medii Ævi Scriptores, or Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages; 35), volume II, London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, →OCLC, page 163:

     Leechdoms regarding […] how the congressus sexuum is not holesome for a dry body, and how it scatheth not a hot nor a wet one: […]

     Translated from a c. 9th-century text.

   1. (specifically, obsolete) To cause monetary loss to (someone).
      • 1602, [Thomas Heywood], A Pleasant Conceited Comedie, wherein is Shewed How a Man may Chuse a Good Wife from a Bad. […], London: […] [Thomas Creede] for Mathew Lawe, […], →OCLC; reprinted as How a Man may Choose a Good Wife from a Bad (Old English Drama Students Facsimile; 50), [London: s.n.], 1912, →OCLC, signature C, recto:

        VVell goe too vvild oates, ſpend thrift, prodigall, / Ile croſſe thy name quite from my reckoning booke: / For theſe accounts, faith it ſhall skathe thee ſomevvhat, / I vvill not ſay vvhat ſomevvhat it ſhall be.

2. (by extension, chiefly literary and poetic) To harm, injure, or destroy (someone or something) by fire, lightning, or some other heat source; to blast; to scorch; to wither.

   Synonyms: burn, forsweal, incinerate, singe, torch

   • 1810, Walter Scott, “Canto III. The Gathering.”, in The Lady of the Lake; […], Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for John Ballantyne and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and William Miller, →OCLC, stanza X, page 109:

     The shout was hushed on lake and fell, / The Monk resumed his muttered spell. / Dismal and low its accents came, / The while he scathed the Cross with flame; […]

   • 1813, Walter Scott, “Canto Fourth”, in Rokeby; a Poem, Edinburgh: […] [F]or John Ballantyne and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown; by James Ballantyne and Co., […], →OCLC, stanza III, page 156:

     Hoary, yet haughty, frowns the oak, / Its boughs by weight of ages broke; / And towers erect, in sable spire, / The pine-tree scathed by lightning fire; […]

   • 1844, George Stephens, transl., The King of Birds; or, The Lay of the Phœnix; an Anglo-Saxon Song of the Tenth or Eleventh Century. […], London: […] J[ohn] B[owyer] Nichols and Son, […], →OCLC, page 9:

     Winter and summer / That wood beeth changeless / Starr'd with rich stores; / Shriveleth never / Leaf under loft / Nor lightning it scatheth, […]

     Translated from a 10th- or 11th-century text.

   • 1853, Mary Benn, “[Part the First]”, in The Solitary; or A Lay from the West; with Other Poems, […], London: Joseph Masters, […]; Dublin: James McGlashan, […], →OCLC, 1st part, stanza 127, page 49:

     [The sun] with vertical and torrid rays / Scathest the middle zone, and equallest the days.

   • 1855, James Avis Bartley, “The Spirit of Poesy”, in Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems, Richmond, Va.: J. W. Randolph, →OCLC, page 141:

     'Tis the wild stream of hell! oh it burneth the soul, / It scatheth, and blighteth, and killeth the whole; […]

3. (figuratively) To severely hurt (someone's feelings, soul, etc., or something intangible) through acts, words spoken, etc.

   Synonyms: affront, wound; see also Thesaurus:offend

   • 1819 July 31, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “The Broken Heart”, in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., number II, New York, N.Y.: […] C[ornelius] S. Van Winkle, […], →OCLC, page 149:

     There are some strokes of calamity that scathe and scorch the soul—that penetrate to the vital seat of happiness—and blast it, never again to put forth bud or blossom.

   • 1831, Thomas Carlyle, “Centre of Indifference”, in Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh. […], London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, 2nd book, page 117:

     For the fire-baptised soul, long so scathed and thunder-riven, here feels its own Freedom, which feeling is its Baphometic Baptism: […]

• scathed (adjective)
• scathing (adjective, noun)
• unscathed

• “scath”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• Scheat, she-cat, taches, cheats, stache, achest, chaste, he-cats, sachet, 'stache, chates, thecas, 'taches, e-chats

scathe

1. Unfortunate, a pity, a shame.
   • 14th c. Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales. General Prologue: 445-6.

     A good wif was ther of biside Bathe, / But she was somdel deef, and that was scathe.

     There was a good woman from near Bath, / but she was somewhat deaf, and that was a pity.