# scathe
## English
### Etymology 1

From Middle English scath, scathe [and other forms], 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”).
* Scots skaith
* Dutch schade
* German schaden
* Norwegian skade
* Swedish skada
* Icelandic skaði
* Polish szkoda
* Russian шко́да (škóda)
* Belarusian шко́дa (škóda)
* Ukrainian шко́да (škóda)

#### Pronunciation

* IPA: /skeɪð/, /skeɪθ/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)Audio:(file)
* Rhymes: -eɪð, -eɪθ

#### Noun

scathe (countable and uncountable, plural scathes) (archaic or British, dialectal)
* (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,: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,— […]
* (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.
* (countable, Scots law, obsolete) An injury or loss for which compensation is sought in a lawsuit; damage; also, expenses incurred by a claimant; costs.
* (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.

##### Alternative forms

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

##### Derived terms

* ill-scathe
* scathefire (obsolete)
* scatheful (archaic)
* scathefulness
* scatheless
* scathelessly
* scathely (Britain, dialectal; Scotland)

##### Related terms

* scaddle (Britain, dialectal or obsolete)

##### Translations
### Etymology 2

From Middle English scathen, skathen (“to harm; to cause loss; to assail, attack; to make war on; to defeat”) [and other forms], from Old Norse skaða (“to damage, harm; to hurt, injure”), from Proto-Germanic *skaþōną (“to damage, harm; to injure”) (whence Old English sceaþian, scaþian (“to harm, hurt, injure, scathe”)), from *skaþô (“damage, scathe; one who causes damage, injurer”, noun); see further at etymology 1.
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: see the 1667 quotation.
* Albanian shkathët (“adept, clever, skilful”)
* Danish skade (“to hurt, injure”)
* Dutch schaden (“to injure”)
* Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌰𐌸𐌾𐌰𐌽 (skaþjan, “to harm, injure; to do wrong”)
* Ancient Greek ἀσκηθής (askēthḗs, “unhurt”)
* Old Frisian skathia (“to injure”)
* Old High German skadôn (Middle High German schaden, German schaden (“to damage, harm, hurt; to be harmful”))
* Old Norse skeðja (“to hurt”)
* Old Saxon scaðon (“to slander”)
* Swedish skada (“to hurt, injure”)

#### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA: /skeɪð/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -eɪð

#### Verb

scathe (third-person singular simple present scathes, present participle scathing, simple past and past participle scathed) (transitive)
* (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,: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.
** (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.
* (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; […]
* (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: […]

##### Conjugation

$^†$ Archaic or obsolete.

##### Derived terms

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

##### Translations
### References

* ↑ “scā̆th(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
* ↑ Compare “scathe, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2022; “scathe, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
* ↑ “scāthen, v.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
* 1 2 Compare “scathe, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2022; “scathe, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

### Further reading

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

### Anagrams

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

## Middle English
### Adjective

scathe
* 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.