loath
UK/ləʊθ/US/loʊθ/
loath adjective: averse, disinclined; reluctant, unwilling. Always followed by a verbal phrase. Also the obsolete spelling of loathe.
Adjective
loath (comparative loather, superlative loathest)
- Averse, disinclined; reluctant, unwilling. Always followed by a verbal phrase.
- I was loath to return to the office without the Henderson file.
- Then ſaid Faint-heart, Deliver thy Purſe; but he making no haſte to do it (for he was loth to loſe his Money,) Miſtrust ran up to him, and thruſting his hand into his Pocket, pull'd out thence a bag of Silver.1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: […], London: […] Nath[aniel] Ponder […], →OCLC, page 166
- Angry, hostile.
- Loathsome, unpleasant.
Also used as
loath is also the obsolete spelling of loathe.
Examples of loath in a sentence
- Of all the people in the world our countrymen are the loathest to give away their money without some reasonable quid pro quo; […]1868, [John Blaikie], “Schools and Schoolmaster, Churches and Parsons, Universities and Professors”, in The Old Times and the New, London...
- The frizzle-headed man-eaters were loath to leave their fleshpots so long as the harvest of human carcases was plentiful.1909 December 29, Jack London, “The Whale Tooth”, in South Sea Tales, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, published October 1911, →OCLC...
- Act, were increasingly loath to part with their cash.1955 February, T. B. Sands, “The Didcot, Newbury & Southampton Railway—1”, in Railway Magazine, page 79:
Synonyms of loath
Antonyms
- antonym(s) of
Forms of loath
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | loather |
| superlative | loathest |
| alternative form | loth |
| alternative form | loathed |
| alternative form | loathe |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | loaths |
| present participle | loathing |
| past participle | loathed |
| past | loathed |
Origin of loath
From Middle English lōth (“loath; averse, hateful”), from Old English lāð, lāþ (“evil; loathsome”), or Old Norse leið, leiðr (“uncomfortable; tired”) from Proto-Germanic *laiþaz (“loath; hostile; sad, sorry”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂leyt- (“to do something abhorrent or hateful”). The word is cognate with Danish led (“disgusting, loathsome; nasty”), Dutch leed (“sad; (Belgium) angry”), French laid (“ugly; morally corrupt”), Catalan lleig (“ugly”), Icelandic leiður (“annoyed, vexed; sad; (archaic or poetic) annoying, wearisome”), Italian laido (“filthy, foul; obscene”), Old Frisian leed, Old High German leid (Middle High German leit, modern German leid (“uncomfortable”), Leid (“grief, sorrow, woe; affliction, suffering; harm, injury; wrong”)), Old Saxon lêð, lēth (“evil person or thing”), Swedish led (“bored; tired; (archaic) disgusting, loathsome; evil”).
Words formed from loath
Words that rhyme with loath
1 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about loath
- What does loath mean?
- Loath means averse, disinclined; reluctant, unwilling. Always followed by a verbal phrase.
- How do you use loath in a sentence?
- Of all the people in the world our countrymen are the loathest to give away their money without some reasonable quid pro quo; […]
- What part of speech is loath?
- Loath is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce loath?
- Loath is pronounced /ləʊθ/ (UK).
Words near loath in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: loath (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-loath.ogg.
Cite this entry: “loath.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/loath. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.