sith

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English sitthe, also sithe,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English siðða,^[4][2][3][5] a shortened variant of siððan (“then, thereupon; since; seeing that”),^[3][4][6][7] the source of since.^[3][8] Besides the West Saxon forms, Old English had Mercian seoððan and Northumbrian soðða.^[2][9] The revised OED instead treats the word as a shortening of sithen, the Middle English continuation of the longer form.^[9] The longer form was originally a phrase made of sīþ (“after, later”) and a case form of the demonstrative: þām in Dictionary.com, þon in Etymonline.^[5][6] The first element goes back to Proto-Germanic *sīþiz (“later”),^[10][6] the source also of Old Saxon sīð (“later”), Old High German sīd (“later, since”) and the German seit (“since”), and is related to Gothic 𐍃𐌴𐌹𐌸𐌿𐍃 (seiþus, “late”).^[10][6][5] Etymonline traces it further to Proto-Indo-European *se- (“long, late”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Old English Lindisfarne Gospels the word already appears both as an adverb, "then, afterwards", and as a conjunction, "from the time when".^[9] The causal sense "seeing that, because" is recorded from before 1225, in the Poema Morale.^[9]

Semantic evolution

In Old and Middle English the word covered the same ground as since: "afterwards", "ever since then", "from the time when" and, by a natural step, "because".^[9][2] Chaucer used it about 150 times as a conjunction, mostly in the form sith, and a few times as an adverb and a preposition.^[11] Most of the temporal senses died out between the 15th and 17th centuries,^[9][12] and Johnson (1755) marked the word obsolete, defining it as "since; seeing that" with a quotation from Hooker among others.^[13] Weekley noted that it fell out of use about 1700 but was revived by 19th-century poets;^[14] the OED has archaic adverb uses into the early 20th century.^[9] In dialect it survived longer: the English Dialect Dictionary records it as a preposition and conjunction in Scotland, Ireland, Northumberland and Yorkshire, with the form zeeth in Wexford.^[15]

Timeline

• Old English – adverb, then, afterwards; adverb, continuously since then; conjunction, from the time when.^[9]
• before 1225 – conjunction, seeing that, because.^[9]
• before 1300 – adverb, next in order or rank (obsolete by 1400).^[9]
• before 1350 – adverb, at some time since then (obsolete by 1549).^[9]
• before 1375 – adverb, ago, before now.^[9]

Meanings

Conjunction

1. (archaic) Since; seeing that, because.^[7][9][16]
2. (archaic) From the time when; since.^[7][9]

Adverb

1. (archaic) Since then; afterwards.^[7][9][12]

Preposition

1. (archaic) Since; from (a time).^[7][15]

Related words

• since
• syne
• sithence
• sithen

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
11. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
12. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
16. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster