ruth
noun
- compassion/pity (feeling of sorrow for another)
proper noun
- female given name
- book of the Bible
- biblical figure
- family name
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ɹuːθ/ / /ɹʉwθ/ / /ɹuθ/
name
Etymology: From Ruth the Moabite, Hebrew רות, of uncertain origin, possibly meaning "companion". Also associated with the English noun ruth (“compassion”) by Puritans.
- A book of the Old Testament and the Hebrew Tanakh.
- The resident of Moab around whom the text centers.
“And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.”
- A female given name from Hebrew.
“Her face hardened. "I despise pity." "In spite of your name? Ruth is your name, isn't it? Piquant that. Ruth the ruthless."”
“He pictured the woman as dark and Biblical, because of her name: Ruth. Shadowed eyes and creamy skin. Torrents of loose black hair.”
- A census-designated place in White Pine County, Nevada, United States.
- A census-designated place in Trinity County, California, United States.
noun
Etymology: 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”), from reu, reuen (“to feel compassion or pity; to regret, rue; etc.”) + -th, -the (suffix denoting a condition, quality, state of being, etc.), possibly influenced by an early Scandinavian language (compare Old Norse hrygð, hryggð (“affliction, grief, sorrow, ruth”), from the Proto-Germanic word indicated below). Reuen is derived from Old English hrēowan (“to grieve; to regret, rue; to repent”), 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).
- Sorrow for the misery of another person; compassion, mercy, pity.
“The dead mans corps hath made ſome Serpents weépe, / Such rewth may ryſe in beaſts of bloudy race: / And yet can man (which bragges aboue the reſt) / Uſe wracke [vengeance] for rewth? can murder like him beſt?”
“It vvas my fortune to be at Rome, vpon a day that one Catena, a notorious high-vvay thief, vvas executed: at his ſtrangling no man of the company ſeemed to be mooved to any ruth; but vvhen he came to be quartered, the Executioner gave no blovve that vvas not accompanied vvith a pitteous voyce, and heartie exclamation, as if every man had had a feeling ſympathie, or lent his ſenſes to the poore mangled vvretch.”
- Regret, remorse, repentance.
“But, what afflicts my peace with keenest ruth, / Is, that I have my inner self abused, / Forgone the home delight of constant truth, / And clear and open soul, so prized in fearless youth.”
“I seek these anchorites, not in ruth, / To curse and to deny your truth; […]”
- Matter for regret or sorrow; calamity, ruin; also, occasion for regret or sorrow; (countable) an instance of this; a disaster, a pitiful thing.
“They ſay it is a ruth to ſee thy louer neede, / But you can ſee me vveepe, but you can ſee me bleede: / And neuer ſhrinke nor ſhame, ne ſhed no teare at all, / You make my vvounds your ſelfe, and fill them vp vvith gall: […]”
“Ah deareſt God (quoth he) that is great vvoe, / And vvondrous ruth to all, that ſhall it heare.”
- Distress, misery, sorrow.
“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.”
“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.”