loathe

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English lothen, also lathen and early laðien,^[2] inherited from Old English lāþian (“to be hateful, displeasing”),^[3][4][5][6] from the adjective lāþ (“hateful, hostile”), the source of loath.^[4][6][7][8] The MED also names Old Norse leiða as a source of the Middle English verb.^[2] The Old English verb goes back to Proto-Germanic *laiþāną, from *laiþaz (“hated, hostile”),^[3][9][6] and is cognate with Old Saxon lēthon (“to be evil or hateful”) and the Norse verb.^[4][3][9][6] Old English also had a causative verb, lǣþan (“to hate, revile”), matching Old High German leidan.^[3] According to Ayto, the Germanic adjective also gave Swedish led (“fed up”) and German Leid (“sorrow”), and was borrowed into the Romance languages as French laid and Italian laido (“ugly”).^[10] Orel compares Ancient Greek ἀλιταίνω (alitaínō, “to transgress”) and Old Irish liuss (“loathing”),^[11] and Köbler traces the adjective to Proto-Indo-European *leit- (“to detest, commit an outrage”).^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

To be hateful or displeasing to someone: the first record is in Alfred's Old English translation of Orosius, made before 899.^[6][3]

Semantic evolution

In Old and early Middle English the verb was intransitive, with the person who felt the dislike in the dative: a thing "loathed" to someone, as in the Middle English phrase whether me liste or lothe, whether I like it or not.^[3][2] An impersonal use, it loathes me, I am disgusted with it, is recorded from about 1230 in the Ancrene Riwle and lasted through the 16th century.^[3][4] The transitive sense, to feel aversion for something, appears before 1200 in the Moral Ode;^[3] Etymonline dates the main modern sense, to hate or be disgusted with, to about 1200,^[4] and Barnhart finds "to hate, dislike" about 1303.^[6] At first it could also mean only to be unwilling to do something, but it now has only the stronger sense of intense aversion.^[3] From about 1400 it was used of food that one cannot stomach.^[3] Two other uses died out in the 17th century: intransitive "to feel disgust" (about 1430 to 1609) and "to fill someone with loathing" (1568 to 1661).^[3] Gower used the verb four times.^[13] Johnson (1755) defined it first as "to hate; to look on with abhorrence", deriving it from the noun.^[14]

Timeline

• before 899 – to be hateful or displeasing to someone (obsolete after 1596).^[6][3]
• before 1200 – to feel aversion for; also, to be unwilling to do something.^[3] Etymonline dates the sense "to hate" to about 1200.^[4]
• c. 1230 – impersonal it loathes me, I am disgusted (obsolete after 1596).^[3]
• c. 1400 – to feel disgust for food.^[3]
• c. 1430 – intransitive, to feel disgust (obsolete after 1609).^[3]
• 1568 – to fill someone with loathing (obsolete after 1661).^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To feel intense dislike or disgust for; to detest or abhor: The two neighbours have loathed each other for years.^[15][16][3]
2. To find a food or drink repugnant: After the illness she loathed the smell of coffee.^[3]
3. (obsolete, Old English–1596) To be hateful or offensive to someone.^[3][2]
4. (obsolete, c. 1230–1596) Impersonally, it loathes me: I am disgusted.^[3][2]

Word family

• loather
• loathing
• loathsome
• self-loathing

Related words

• loath

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
12. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
13. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster