troth

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.

noun

1. (countable, archaic) An oath, pledge, or promise.
   1. (countable, archaic) A pledge or promise to marry someone.
      ...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;... 1850, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H., Canto XXVII
      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. 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
   2. (countable, archaic) The state of being thus pledged; betrothal, engagement.
2. (countable, uncountable, archaic) Truth; something true.
   [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. 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
   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. 21 September 1571, 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
   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. 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

verb

1. (obsolete) To pledge to marry somebody.