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ruth

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English

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WOTD – 25 May 2026
Briton Rivière, Sympathy (1878).[n 1] The painting depicts a sad-looking girl sitting on a staircase, with a pet dog leaning its head on her shoulder, exhibiting ruth (noun sense 1.1).

Etymology

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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”),[1] from reu, reuen (“to feel compassion or pity; to regret, rue; etc.”)[2] + -th, -the (suffix denoting a condition, quality, state of being, etc.),[3] possibly influenced by an early Scandinavian language (compare Old Norse hrygð, hryggð (“affliction, grief, sorrow, ruth”), from the Proto-Germanic word indicated below).[4] Reuen is derived from Old English hrēowan (“to grieve; to regret, rue; to repent”),[5] 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

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Noun

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ruth (countable and uncountable, plural ruths)

  1. (uncountable, archaic)
    2. Sorrow for the misery of another person; compassion, mercy, pity. [from 13th c.]
      Synonyms: commiseration, (archaic, or UK, dialectal) rue; see also Thesaurus:compassion
      Antonym: (poetic, archaic) unruth
    3. Regret, remorse, repentance. [from 13th c.]
      Synonyms: contrition; see also Thesaurus:remorse
  2. (obsolete)
    1. (uncountable) Matter for regret or sorrow; calamity, ruin; also, occasion for regret or sorrow; (countable) an instance of this; a disaster, a pitiful thing. [13th–17th c.]
      Synonyms: hardship, sorrow; see also Thesaurus:woe
    2. (uncountable) Distress, misery, sorrow. [13th–19th c.]
      Synonyms: dejection, unhappiness; see also Thesaurus:sadness
      • 1591, Ed[mund] Sp[enser], “Visions of the Worlds Vanitie”, in Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. […], London: […] William Ponsonbie, […], →OCLC, stanza 7, signature [B4], verso:
        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.
      • 1616, Beniamin Ionson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Epigrammes. [XXII. On My First Daughter.]”, in The Workes of Beniamin Ionson (First Folio), London: […] Will[iam] Stansby, →OCLC, page 774:
        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.
        The poem refers to Mary Jonson, Jonson’s eldest daughter, who died in November 1593 at six months of age.
      • 1841 (date written), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “[Miscellaneous.] Maidenhood.”, in Ballads and Other Poems, 2nd edition, Cambridge, Mass.: […] John Owen, published 1842, →OCLC, stanza 14, page 128:
        Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth, / In thy heart the dew of youth, / On thy lips the smile of truth.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Notes

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  1. ^ From the collection of the Tate Britain, London, England, United Kingdom.

References

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  1. ^ “reuth(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ “reuen, v.(1)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  3. ^ “-th(e, suf.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  4. ^ “ruth, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2025; “ruth1, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  5. ^ Joseph Bosworth (1882), “hreówan”, in T[homas] Northcote Toller, editor, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 559, column 1.

Further reading

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Anagrams

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