troth

See also: Troth

English

WOTD – 14 October 2018

Etymology

From Middle English troth, trothe, trouthe, trowthe, a variant of treuth, treuthe, treouthe (“allegiance, fidelity, faithfulness, loyalty; oath, pledge, promise; betrothal or marriage vow; betrothal; honour, integrity; holiness, righteousness; confidence, trust; creed, faith; fact, reality, truth”), from Old English trēowþ, trīewþ (“truth, veracity; faith, fidelity; covenant, pledge”), from Proto-Germanic *triwwiþō (“contract; promise”), equivalent to true +‎ -th. See more at truth.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /tɹəʊθ/, /tɹɒθ/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /tɹoʊθ/, /tɹɔθ/
• Rhymes: -əʊθ, -ɒθ, -oʊθ, -ɔθ

Noun

troth (countable and uncountable, plural troths)

1. (countable, archaic) An oath, pledge, or promise.
   • c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Second Part of Henrie the Fourth, […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

     By my troth I care not, a man can die but once, we owe God a death, [...]

   • 1883, Howard Pyle, “The Shooting-match at Nottingham Town”, in The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood […], New York, N.Y.: […] Charles Scribner’s Sons […], →OCLC, part first, page 32:

     And by my faith and troth I have a good part of a mind to have thee beaten for thine insolence!

   • 1909, “Adventure XVI: How Siegfried was Slain”, in Daniel Bussier Shumway, transl., The Nibelungenlied: Translated from the Middle High German with an Introductory Sketch and Notes (The Riverside Literature Series), Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Company […], →OCLC, page 131:

     Hagen of Troneg now foully broke his troth to Siegfried.

   1. (countable, archaic) A pledge or promise to marry someone.
      • 1850, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H., Canto XXVII:

        ...I envy not the beast that takes
        His license in the field of time,
        Unfetter'd by the sense of crime,
        To whom a conscience never wakes;
        Nor, what may count itself as blest,
        The heart that never plighted troth
        But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;...

      • 1872 June, Mar Travers, “The Lord of Misrule”, in The Nautical Magazine for 1872: A Journal of Papers on Subjects Connected with Maritime Affairs, volume XLI (New Series), London: Simpkin, Marshall and Co., […]; and J. D. Potter, […], →OCLC, pages 506–507:

        It follows, as a natural consequence, that the two who stood alone in the new faith, [...] should, finally, make mutual confession of the passion that had surprised both, in the early pride of man and womanhood; should exchange rings, and plight troths where the pleasaunce joined the river, as young lovers do still probably exchange rings and plight troths, by the old Cheshire river.

      • 1893, Henry James, “Collaboration”, in The Wheel of Time; Collaboration; Owen Wingrave, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers publishers, →OCLC, page 110:

        Vendemer’s sole fortune is his genius, and he and Paule, who confessed to an answering flame, plighted their troth like a pair of young rustics or (what comes for French people to the same thing) young Anglo-Saxons.

   2. (countable, archaic) The state of being thus pledged; betrothal, engagement.
      • 1826, [James Fenimore Cooper], chapter XIV, in The Last of the Mohicans; a Narrative of 1757. […], volume I, Philadelphia, Pa.: H[enry] C[harles] Carey & I[saac] Lea— […], →OCLC, page 248:

        I did, therefore, what an honest man should; restored the maiden her troth, and departed the country, in the service of my king.

2. (countable, uncountable, archaic) Truth; something true.
   • 1565, [James Calfhill], “The Preface to the Readers”, in An Avnswere to the Treatise of the Crosse: […], imprinted at London: By Henry Denham, for Lucas Harryson, →OCLC; republished as Richard Gibbings, editor, An Answer to John Martiall’s Treatise of the Cross (Parker Society for the Publication of the Works of the Fathers and Early Writers of the Reformed English Church (series); 11), Cambridge: Printed at the University Press, 1846, →OCLC, page 48:

     [John] Martiall, much like to Virgil's Sinon, (of whom he took a precedent, to make an artificial lie,) for three leaves together, in his preface, telleth undoubted trothes; to the end that the falsehoods, which, foolishly, (God wot,) he doth infer, may have the more credit.

   • 1571 September 21, Hugh Fitz William, quotee, “Cabala, sive Scrinia Sacra: Mysteries of State and Government, in Letters of Illustrious Persons and Great Ministers of State, as well Foreign and Domestick, in the Reigns of King Henry the Eighth, Queen Elizabeth, King James, and King Charles, […]”, in Henry Southern, Nicholas Harris Nicolas, editors, The Retrospective Review, and Historical and Antiquarian Magazine, volume II, part I (Second Series), London: Baldwin and Cradock […], published 1828, →OCLC, page 39:

     I can̄ot lerne Banister's confession upon the racke as yet; but he was put to the racke for denying of moost manifest trothes at the first.

   • 1592, “Masques: Performed before Queen Elizabeth. […]”, in John Nichols, editor, The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth. […] In Three Volumes, volume III, London: Printed by and for John Nichols and Son, […], published 1823, →OCLC, part III (The Second Daies Woorke where the Chaplayne Maketh This Relation. [...]), page 211:

     The suddaine recouerie of my distressed Maister, whome latelie you left in a Traunce (Most excellent Princes!) hath made me at one tyme the hastie messenger of three trothes, your miracle, his mending, & my mirthe.

   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter I, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 19:

     Troth but it was fitting speech for the moonlight: moonlight, the bright and clear, but the cold—which, unlike the sun, opens no flowers, and ripens no fruit.

Derived terms

• betroth
• betrothal
• tell-troth
• trothless
• trothplight
• trothplighted (adjective)

 

Related terms

• truth

Translations

oath, pledge or promise

• Bulgarian: обещание (bg) n (obeštanie), честна дума f (čestna duma)
• German: Treuegelöbnis n, Treueversprechen n, Treueeid m, Treue (de) f
• Norwegian: troskapsed m
• Russian: честное сло́во (ru) n (čestnoje slóvo)

pledge or promise to marry someone

• Bulgarian: обещание за женитба (obeštanie za ženitba)
• German: Eheversprechen n

state of being pledged to marry someone; betrothal, engagement

• Bulgarian: годеж m (godež)
• German: Verlobung (de) f
• Norwegian: forlovelse (no) m
• Persian: وفا (fa) (vafâ)
• Russian: помо́лвка (ru) f (pomólvka)

truth — see truth

Verb

troth (third-person singular simple present troths, present participle trothing, simple past and past participle trothed)

1. (obsolete) To pledge to marry somebody.

Further reading

• troth (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “troth”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “troth”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “troth”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• thort