athirst

English

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English athirst, from Old English ofþyrst, past participle of ofþyrstan (“to smart from thirst”), equivalent to a- (“of”, Etymology 8) +‎ thirst (verb).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /əˈθɜːst/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)st

Adjective

athirst (comparative more athirst, superlative most athirst)

1. (archaic) Thirsty.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Revelation 21:6:

     I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.

   • 1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], “Old Maids”, in Shirley. A Tale. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, page 264:

     To this extenuated spectre, perhaps, a crumb is not thrown once a year; but when ahungered and athirst to famine—when all humanity has forgotten the dying tenant of a decaying house—Divine Mercy remembers the mourner, […]

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Chapter 1”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

     Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.

2. (figuratively) Eager or extremely desirous (for something).
   • 1817, John Keats, Sonnet (Written on a blank space at the end of Chaucer’s tale of ‘The Floure And The Leafe’‎^[1]:

     I, that forever feel athirst for glory,
     Could at this moment be content to lie
     Meekly upon the grass, as those whose sobbings
     Were heard of none beside the mournful robins.

   • 1878, Algernon Charles Swinburne, “Ave Atque Vale (In Memory of Charles Baudelaire)”, in Poems and Ballads, Second Series‎^[2], Stanza IV:

     O sleepless heart and sombre soul unsleeping,
     That were athirst for sleep and no more life
     And no more love, for peace and no more strife!

   • 1913, Rabindranath Tagore, The Gardener, translated from the Bengali by the author, 5,^[3]

     I am restless. I am athirst for far-away things.

     My soul goes out in a longing to touch the skirt of the dim distance.

Derived terms

• unathirst

Anagrams

• ratshit, rattish, tartish, tirthas

Middle English

FWOTD – 23 April 2026

Alternative forms

• athurst, a-thurst, aþirst, aþriste, aþurst, a þurst, a-þurst, a-þurste
• hofþurst, ofþerst, of þurch, ofþurst, of-þurst (Early Middle English)
• aferst, a-ferst, afurst, a-furst (with /f/)
• a-þrest, aþreste, a-þrust (Herefordshire); a-thriste, a thryst, a-thryste (especially East Anglia, East Saxon)

Etymology

Inherited from Old English ofþyrst, from ofþyrstan (“to be dehydrated”); reinforced by the phrase on thirst. By surface analysis, a- +‎ thirst.

Southern and West Midland forms with /f/ are from assimilation of /θ/ to the preceding /f/ (in early forms which retain the /f/ of ofþyrst). They may have been reinforced by the parallel of afyngred, variant of ofhungred (where a similar assimilatory process occurred).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /aˈθirst/, /aˈθurst/
• IPA^(key): /aˈθrist/ (especially East Anglia, East Saxon)
• IPA^(key): /aˈfurst/ (West Midland, Southern)

Adjective

athirst (especially Southern, Southwest Midland; not Northern)

1. suffering from thirst; very thirsty
   • c. 1378-9, [William Langland], “Paſſus .x᷒. de visione. et ıı᷒ de Dowel..”, in [Piers Plowman, A Treatise on Sin] (W, B-text), London, published c. 1400, →OCLC, folio 52, recto; republished as Thorlac Turville-Petre, Hoyt N. Duggan, editors, Cambridge, Trinity College, MS B.15.17 (The Piers Plowman Electronic Archive; 2), SEENET, 2014, →ISBN:

     Ac þe carefulle may crie. and carpen at þe yate / Boþe afyngred and a furſt. and foꝛ chele quake. / Is þͬ noon to nyme hym neer. his anoy to amende / But hunten hym as an hound. and hoten hym go þennes

     But those in distress must cry and complain at the gate, / both hungry and thirsty, and shivering from the chill; / there is no one to take them close and relieve their hardship / rather than chasing them like a dog and telling them to go away.

2. yearning, eager [with after]

Descendants

• English: athirst (archaic)

References

• “athurst, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
• “ofthirst, ppl.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
• “athirst, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.