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ruth

Pronunciation: /ɹuːθ/

The English word “ruth” has 4 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. Sorrow for the misery of another person; compassion, mercy, pity.
  2. Regret, remorse, repentance.
  3. Matter for regret or sorrow; calamity, ruin; also, occasion for regret or sorrow; (countable) an instance of this; a disaster, a pitiful thing.
  4. Distress, misery, sorrow.

Etymology

From Middle English ruthe, reuthe, reuþe, reowthe, rewthe (“compassion, pity, sympathy; mercy; grief, sorrow; cause or event of pity or sorrow; lamentation; calamity, trouble; distress; regret, remorse; cruelty, ill treatment”), from reu, reuen (“to feel compassion or pity; to regret, rue; etc.”) + -th, -the (suffix denoting a condition, quality, state of being, etc.), possibly influenced by an…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.