loathsome

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English lothsom,^[2][3][4] formed from Middle English loth + -som.^[3][4][5] The sources differ on the first element: the OED, the Oxford Dictionary of English and Merriam-Webster Unabridged take it as the noun loath, meaning harm, hatred or disgust,^[6][7][5] which goes back to Old English lāð,^[6] while the American Heritage Dictionary takes it as the adjective meaning hateful,^[4] and the Middle English Dictionary allows both.^[3] Etymonline says that the base is used here in its older, stronger sense.^[8] The OED compares Old High German leidsam.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Offensive to the senses, sickening: 1398, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomew de Glanville.^[6] Etymonline dates the word to about 1300, as foul or detestable,^[8] Dictionary.com to 1250–1300,^[2] and the Middle English Dictionary's first quotation, from before 1400, describes worms, dragons and toads in the Cursor Mundi as ful laithsum on to here and se.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Middle English used the word broadly: foul or wicked, fearsome, misshapen or ugly, and merely unpleasant or irksome.^[3] Besides the physical sense of sickening, the OED records a moral one, hateful or repulsive, from about 1440,^[6] and it notes that the word now always carries an emotional charge.^[6] For a short time it could also describe the person who felt the disgust, a use the OED records only in 1577–79, in W. Harrison.^[6] Johnson (1755) gave two senses, "abhorred; detestable" and "causing satiety or fastidiousness", the second with Shakespeare's honey that is loathsome in its own deliciousness.^[9]

Timeline

• 1398 – offensive to the senses, sickening.^[6] Etymonline dates the word to about 1300.^[8]
• c. 1440 – morally hateful, repulsive.^[6]
• 1577 – disgusted, feeling loathing (obsolete).^[6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Sickening to the senses; foul: A loathsome smell rose from the blocked drains.^[5][6][10]
2. Causing moral disgust; odious, abhorrent: a loathsome betrayal of old friends.^[5][6][11]

Word family

• loathsomely
• loathsomeness
• unloathsome

Related words

• loath
• loathe

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
3. ^ 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)
4. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins