Word.ws English Dictionary

shrithe

/ʃɹaɪð/

shrithe verb: to move; to proceed; to creep, roam, wander.

Verb

shrithe (third-person singular simple present shrithes, present participle shrithing, simple past and past participle shrithed)

  1. (intransitive, poetic) To move; to proceed; to creep, roam, wander.
    • He realized the monster meant to attack Heorot after the blue hour, when black night has settled over all— when shadowy shapes come shrithing dark beneath the clouds.1973, James Edwin Miller, England in Literature, →ISBN, page 14
    • Grendel to His Mother [by Kirsten Dabrowski] Oh momma, momma, I'm just not a winner, / 'Cause I got roughed up on my way to get dinner. / I shrithed to the Heorot to get human yummies / To tickle our palates and fill up our tummies.1993, Betty Bonham Lies, “Writing about Literature through Poetry”, in The Poet’s Pen: Writing Poetry with Middle and High School Students, Portsmouth, N.H.: Teacher Ideas Press, Greenwood Publishing...

Examples of shrithe in a sentence

  • An adder writhes out of the bush, I can see the diamonds on its back; it shrithes across the sandy soil, and bites the right foot of one of the knights.2003, Kevin Crossley-Holland, “The Most Bitter Day”, in King of the Middle March (Arthur; 3), London: Orion Children's Books, →ISBN; 1st...
  • I creep, I shrithe / on my devil's claws, / and sting whatever I touch.2009, Kevin Crossley-Holland, “Switzerland”, in The Hidden Roads: A Memoir of Childhood, London: Quercus, →ISBN:

Forms of shrithe

third-person singular presentshrithes
present participleshrithing
past participleshrithed
pastshrithed

Origin of shrithe

Coined by English writer and translator Kevin Crossley-Holland (born 1941): a semi-learned borrowing from Old English sċrīþan (“to go; take one's way to a place; go about; wander”), from Proto-West Germanic *skrīþan, from Proto-Germanic *skrīþaną (“to walk, go, slither, crawl”). Cognate with Dutch schrijden (“to stride”), German schreiten (“to stride, step, proceed”), Icelandic skríða (“to slither, creep, crawl”). As shrithe was a class I strong verb in Old English, were it inherited, the expected forms would be: simple past: *shrothe, and past-participle: *shrithen. It is important to note, however, that Crossley-Holland did not use these forms and therefore has ahistorically treated shrithe as weak verb.

Words that rhyme with shrithe

Questions about shrithe

What does shrithe mean?
Shrithe means to move; to proceed; to creep, roam, wander.
How do you use shrithe in a sentence?
An adder writhes out of the bush, I can see the diamonds on its back; it shrithes across the sandy soil, and bites the right foot of one of the knights.
What part of speech is shrithe?
Shrithe is a verb.
How do you pronounce shrithe?
Shrithe is pronounced /ʃɹaɪð/ (UK).
What is the past tense of shrithe?
The past tense of shrithe is shrithed.

Words near shrithe in the dictionary

  1. Shrishti
  2. shritch
  3. shritched
  4. shritches
  5. shritching
  6. shrithe
  7. shrithed
  8. shrithes
  9. shrithing
  10. shrivalties
  11. shrivalty

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shrithe (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-shrithe.wav.

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