couth
/kuθ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.46 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Marked by or possessing a high degree of sophistication; cultured, refined.
Example Sentences
- "Squad leaders were responsible for doing periodic checks to make sure soldiers were living a couth lifestyle, as Joes would compete regularly to see whose room was nicer."
- "So Dennis May thrilled me in a recent issue when he described Raymond Mays' 1939 E.R.A. racer as a "couth" little Merc-like model."
- "Yet the dancers are beautiful, their cool movement has a couth simplicity, and there are moments when a gesture of almost absolute beauty stands transfixed in some transom of sublime comprehension."
- "[John] Dankworth's care over the shaping and presentation of his music led occasionally to complaints that it was clever, lightweight stuff, lacking the rough passion which many regarded as the mark of authentic jazz, a view summed up by the critic Kitty Grime in the much-quoted phrase "couth, kempt and shevelled"."
- "That man has no couth."
- "There is an aspect of the cultural conservative argument that sometimes drifts dangerously close to tha view, elitist to the core, as elitist as the New Class, as elitist as limousine liberalism: The public ain't got no couth. You can hear those old-fashioned elitist wheels spinning: Maybe we need a few government regulations to deal with the couth shortage."
Etymology
From Middle English couth (“familiar, known; evident, true; famous, respected, well-known; genteel, having good manners”), from Old English cūþ (“familiar, intimate, known, usual; certain, plain, manifest; famous, noted, well-known; excellent; friendly; related”), past participle of cunnan (“to be familiar with, know; can, to be able, know how”), from Proto-Germanic *kunnaną (“to be familiar with, know, recognize; to be able, know how”) (compare *kunþaz (“known”)), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵneh₃- (“to know”). The word is cognate with Dutch kond (“known”), Saterland Frisian cut (“known”), Gothic 𐌺𐌿𐌽𐌸𐍃 (kunþs, “known”), Icelandic kuður, kunnur (“known”), Latin gnosco (“to know”), Old High German kund, chund, chunt, Middle High German kunt (modern German kund (“known”)), Old Saxon kūth, cûth, cuð (“known; famous, renowned”), Scots couth (“familiar, known”); and is a doublet of could.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *ǵneh₃-, couth, cūþ, *kunnaną
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /kuθ/
- British English: /kuːθ/