kythe
English
Etymology
Common Germanic: Old English cýðan (Middle English cüþen, kyþen, kiþen, keþen). Old Saxon kûðian.
Verb
kythe (third-person singular simple present kyth, present participle ed, simple past and past participle kythed)
- To make known in words; to announce, proclaim, declare, tell.
- 725. Corpus Glossary (1150). Intimandum to cyðenne.
- 1000. West Saxon Gospels (John, xvii. 26). Ic him cyðde ðinne naman & gyt wylle cyþan.
- To make known by action, appearance; to manifest, show, prove, demonstrate, indicate.
- 1175. Lambeth Manuscript (99). Elches monnes weorc cuðað [printed cuðan] hwilc gast hine wissað.
- 1385. Geoffrey Chaucer, Legend Good Women (Prologue, 492). Sche kytheth what she is.
- Alternative form of kithe
- 1380, Chaucer, “II.19”, in The House of Fame[1]:
- To tellen al my drem aryght. Now kythe thyn engyn and myght!
- 1818, Sir Walter Scott, chapter XII, in The Heart of Midlothian[2]:
- ...in a dark night--it kythes bright to the ee, because all is dark around it...
Related terms
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “kythe”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)
Middle English
Noun
kythe
- Alternative form of kith