troths

Noun

troth (countable and uncountable, plural troths)

1. (archaic, countable) An oath, pledge, plight, or promise.
   • By my troth I care not, a man can die but once, we owe God a death, [...]c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Second Part of Henrie the Fourth, […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600...
   1. (archaic, countable) 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
   2. (archaic, countable) The state of being thus pledged; betrothal, engagement.
      • I did, therefore, what an honest man should; restored the maiden her troth, and departed the country, in the service of my king.1826, [James Fenimore Cooper], chapter XIV, in The Last of the Mohicans; a Narrative of 1757. […], volume I, Philadelphia, Pa.: H[enry] C[harles] Carey & I[saac] Lea— […], →OCLC, page 248
2. (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...

See all 6 meanings of troth