wreath
/ɹiθ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.36 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Something twisted, intertwined, or curled.
noun
An ornamental circular band made, for example, of plaited flowers and leaves, and used as decoration; a garland or chaplet, especially one given to a victor.
noun
An appendage to the shield, placed above it, and supporting the crest; an orle, a torse. It generally represents a twist of two cords of silk, one tinctured like the principal metal, the other like the principal color in the coat of arms.
verb
Example Sentences
- "a wreath of smoke a wreath of clouds"
- "The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom. Whirling wreaths and columns of burning wind, rushed around and over them."
- "So, after a spell, he decided to make the best of it and shoved us into the front parlor. 'Twas a dismal sort of place, with hair wreaths, and wax fruit, and tin lambrekins, and land knows what all."
- "On April 16, several hundred students went to Tiananmen Square to place wreaths around the massive Monument to the People’s Heroes, an action that should have alerted the authorities to possible unrest."
- "Sale) or Salovv a kind of vvoodde like VVyllovv, fit to vvreath and bynde in leapes to catch fiſh vvithall."
- "[T]o wreſt the will of man, or to wreath his hearte to our humours, it is not in the compaſſe of Arte, but in the power of the moſt higheſt."
Etymology
From Middle English wreth, wrethe (“coiled or rounded shape; decorative garland, wreath; chaplet, crown; ring”, noun), from Old English *wreoþa, wriþa (“band, coil, ring”), from Proto-West Germanic *wriþō, from Proto-Germanic *wriþô, from *wrīþaną (“to twist; to weave”), from Proto-Indo-European *wreyt- (“to twist”). Doublet of wreathe and writhe.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *wreyt-, wreth, *wreoþa, *wriþō, *wriþô
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɹiθ/
- British English: /ɹiːθ/