Word: ruth Part of Speech: noun 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). Pronunciation: /ɹuːθ/, /ɹʉwθ/, /ɹuθ/, /ɹʉːθ/, /ɾʉθ/ 1. Sorrow for the misery of another person; compassion, mercy, pity. Labels: archaic, countable, uncountable Example: 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? Example: 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. 2. Regret, remorse, repentance. Labels: archaic, countable, uncountable Example: 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. Example: I seek these anchorites, not in ruth, / To curse and to deny your truth; […] 3. Matter for regret or sorrow; calamity, ruin; also, occasion for regret or sorrow; (countable) an instance of this; a disaster, a pitiful thing. Labels: obsolete, uncountable Example: 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: […] Example: Ah deareſt God (quoth he) that is great vvoe, / And vvondrous ruth to all, that ſhall it heare. 4. Distress, misery, sorrow. Labels: obsolete, uncountable Example: 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. Example: 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.