Word.ws English Dictionary

rathe

/ɹeɪð/

rathe adjective: ripening or blooming early.

Adjective

rathe (comparative rather, superlative rathest)

  1. (poetic) Ripening or blooming early.
    • Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies.1637 (date written; published 1638), John Milton, “Lycidas”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, […], London: […] Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, […], published 1646, →OCLC
    • Thy converse drew us with delight,
      The men of rathe and riper years:
      The feeble soul, a haunt of fears,
      Forgot his weakness in thy sight.1849, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H., canto 111

Adverb

rathe (comparative rather, superlative rathest)

  1. (obsolete) Quickly.
  2. (poetic) Early in the morning.

Proper noun capitalized: Rathe

Rathe (plural Rathes)

  1. A surname from German.

Forms of rathe

Adjective
comparativerather
superlativerathest
alternative formrath
Adverb
comparativerather
superlativerathest
Proper noun
pluralRathes

Origin of rathe

From Middle English rathe, from Old English hraþe, from Proto-West Germanic *hraþō, *hradō (“quickly”), from *hraþ, *hrad (“quick”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kret- (“quick; to move quickly”). Cognate with German Low German radd, ratt (“rashly; quickly; hastily”), and German gerade (“now, just, exactly”); compare Dutch rad (“quick, swift”), Norwegian rad (“quick, direct”), Gothic 𐍂𐌰𐌸𐌹𐌶𐌰 (raþiza, “easier”).

* As a German surname, variant of Rath. * As a southern German surname, from a pet form of the name Konrad. * As a French surname, variant of Ratte.

Words formed from rathe

Words that rhyme with rathe

1 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about rathe

What does rathe mean?
Rathe means ripening or blooming early.
What part of speech is rathe?
Rathe can be an adjective, an adverb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce rathe?
Rathe is pronounced /ɹeɪð/.

Words near rathe in the dictionary

  1. Rathburn
  2. Rathburns
  3. Rathcool
  4. Rathdrum
  5. Rathduff
  6. rathe
  7. rathel
  8. rathely
  9. Rathen
  10. ratheness
  11. rather

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rathe (page history and authors); Rathe (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-rathe.wav.

Cite this entry: “rathe.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rathe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.