scathe

Etymology 1

From Middle English scath, scathe [and other forms], from Old Norse skaði (“damage, harm; loss; death; murder”), from Proto-Germanic *skaþô (“damage, scathe; one who causes damage, injurer”, noun) (whence Old English sċeaþa, sċeaþu (“scathe, harm, injury”)), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)keh₁t- (“damage, harm”). cognates * Scots skaith

noun

1. (countable, uncountable) Damage, harm, hurt, injury.
   Now telleth the tale concerning the sons of Gudrun, that she had arrayed their war-raiment in such wise, that no steel would bite thereon; and she bade them play not with stones or other heavy matters, for that it would be to their scathe if they did so. 1870, “The Latter End of All the Kin of the Giukings”, in Eiríkr Magnússon, William Morris, transl., Völsunga Saga. The Story of the Volsungs & Niblungs: With Certain Songs from the Elder Edda.[…], London: F[rederick] S[tartridge] Ellis,[…], →OCLC, page 161
2. (countable) Someone who, or something which, causes harm; an injurer.
   The pride I trampled is now my scathe, / For it tramples me again. 1888, William Ernest Henley, “Life and Death (Echoes)”, in A Book of Verses, London: David Nutt[…], →OCLC, canto XXXV, page 102
3. (countable, Scotland, law, obsolete) An injury or loss for which compensation is sought in a lawsuit; damage; also, expenses incurred by a claimant; costs.
4. (uncountable) Something to be mourned or regretted.

Etymology 2

From Middle English scathen, skathen (“to harm; to cause loss; to assail, attack; to make war on; to defeat”) [and other forms], from Old Norse skaða (“to damage, harm; to hurt, injure”), from Proto-Germanic *skaþōną (“to damage, harm; to injure”) (whence Old English sceaþian, scaþan (“to harm, hurt, injure, scathe”)), from *skaþô (“damage, scathe; one who causes damage, injurer”, noun); see further at etymology 1. Sense 2 (“to harm, injure, or destroy (someone or something) by fire, lightning, or some other heat source”) appears to derive from Paradise Lost by the English poet John Milton (1608–1674), perhaps influenced by scorch: see the 1667 quotation. cognates * Albanian shkathët (“adept, clever, skilful”) * Danish skade (“to hurt, injure”) * Dutch schaden (“to injure”) * Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌰𐌸𐌾𐌰𐌽 (skaþjan, “to harm, injure; to do wrong”) * Ancient Greek ἀσκηθής (askēthḗs, “unhurt”) * Old Frisian skathia (“to injure”) * Old High German skadôn (Middle High German schaden, German schaden (“to damage, harm, hurt; to be harmful”)) * Old Norse skeðja (“to hurt”) * Old Saxon scaðon (“to slander”) * Swedish skada (“to hurt, injure”)

verb

1. (archaic or Scotland) To harm or injure (someone or something) physically.
   Leechdoms regarding […] how the congressus sexuum is not holesome for a dry body, and how it scatheth not a hot nor a wet one: […] Translated from a c. 9th-century text. 1865, “Leech Book. Book II.”, in Oswald Cockayne, editor, Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England. Being a Collection of Documents, for the Most Part Never before Printed, Illustrating the History of Science in this Country before the Norman Conquest.[…] (Rerum Britannicarum Medii Ævi Scriptores, or Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages; 35), volume II, London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, →OCLC, page 163
   1. (specifically, obsolete) To cause monetary loss to (someone).
2. (by extension, chiefly literary and poetic) To harm, injure, or destroy (someone or something) by fire, lightning, or some other heat source; to blast; to scorch; to wither.
   Winter and summer / That wood beeth changeless / Starr'd with rich stores; / Shriveleth never / Leaf under loft / Nor lightning it scatheth, […] Translated from a 10th- or 11th-century text. 1844, George Stephens, transl., The King of Birds; or, The Lay of the Phœnix; an Anglo-Saxon Song of the Tenth or Eleventh Century.[…], London: […] J[ohn] B[owyer] Nichols and Son,[…], →OCLC, page 9
   [The sun] with vertical and torrid rays / Scathest the middle zone, and equallest the days. 1853, Mary Benn, “[Part the First]”, in The Solitary; or A Lay from the West; with Other Poems,[…], London: Joseph Masters,[…]; Dublin: James McGlashan,[…], →OCLC, 1st part, stanza 127, page 49
   'Tis the wild stream of hell! oh it burneth the soul, / It scatheth, and blighteth, and killeth the whole; […] 1855, James Avis Bartley, “The Spirit of Poesy”, in Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems, Richmond, Va.: J. W. Randolph, →OCLC, page 141
3. (figurative) To severely hurt (someone's feelings, soul, etc., or something intangible) through acts, words spoken, etc.