scathe
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /skeɪð/
ipa: /skeɪθ/
rhymes: -eɪð
rhymes: -eɪθ
ipa: /skeɪð/
rhymes: -eɪð
ipa: /skeɪð/
ipa: /skeɪθ/
rhymes: -eɪð
rhymes: -eɪθ
Forms: form: scathes
form: scathing
form: scathed
form: scathed
form: no-table-tags
form: glossary
form: scathe
form: scathe
form: scathed
form: scathe
form: scathest
form: scathed
form: scathedst
form: scathes
form: scatheth
form: scathed
form: scathe
form: scathed
form: scathe
form: scathed
form: scathe
form: -
form: scathing
form: scathed
Etymology: 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.
Cognates
* 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”)
Senses: examples: text: This trick may chance to ſcath you I knovv vvhat, / You muſt contrarie me, […]
ref: 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]:
text: 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.
ref: 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:
text: 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.
ref: [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:
text: [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!"
ref: 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:
text: 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.
ref: 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:
text: Leechdoms regarding […] how the congressus sexuum is not holesome for a dry body, and how it scatheth not a hot nor a wet one: […]
ref: 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:
synonyms: word: damage
word: wound
word: abuse
word: annoy
word: bewound
word: damage
word: damnify
word: dere
word: do damage to
word: do for
word: do ill
word: do violence to
word: forwork
word: grieve
word: harm
word: harrow
word: hurt
word: injure
word: maul
word: misdo
word: put someone in hospital
word: scaith
word: scathe
word: vulnerate
word: wet
word: wound
glosses: To harm or injure (someone or something) physically.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 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:
synonyms: word: damage
word: wound
word: abuse
word: annoy
word: bewound
word: damage
word: damnify
word: dere
word: do damage to
word: do for
word: do ill
word: do violence to
word: forwork
word: grieve
word: harm
word: harrow
word: hurt
word: injure
word: maul
word: misdo
word: put someone in hospital
word: scaith
word: scathe
word: vulnerate
word: wet
word: wound
glosses: To harm or injure (someone or something) physically.
To cause monetary loss to (someone).
examples: text: 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; […]
ref: 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:
text: 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; […]
ref: 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:
text: Winter and summer / That wood beeth changeless / Starr'd with rich stores; / Shriveleth never / Leaf under loft / Nor lightning it scatheth, […]
ref: 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:
text: [The sun] with vertical and torrid rays / Scathest the middle zone, and equallest the days.
ref: 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:
text: 'Tis the wild stream of hell! oh it burneth the soul, / It scatheth, and blighteth, and killeth the whole; […]
ref: 1855, James Avis Bartley, “The Spirit of Poesy”, in Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems, Richmond, Va.: J. W. Randolph, →OCLC, page 141:
synonyms: burn
forsweal
incinerate
singe
torch
glosses: To harm, injure, or destroy (someone or something) by fire, lightning, or some other heat source; to blast; to scorch; to wither.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 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:
text: For the fire-baptised soul, long so scathed and thunder-riven, here feels its own Freedom, which feeling is its Baphometic Baptism: […]
ref: 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:
synonyms: word: affront
word: wound
word: abuse
word: affront
word: burn
word: carry
word: cut down
word: disrespect
word: dis
word: diss
word: give stick
word: heckle
word: hurt someone's feelings
word: insult
word: lapidate
word: qualifier
word: misbid
word: misrespect
word: misuse
word: offend
word: sledge
word: slight
word: sneap
word: wound
glosses: To severely hurt (someone's feelings, soul, etc., or something intangible) through acts, words spoken, etc.
Derived terms: word: scathed
word: scathing
word: unscathed