shrithe
/ʃɹaɪð/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
1
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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."
- "While the winged creature coiled himself up, / the friend and lord of men stood unflinching / by his shield; Beowulf waited ready armed. / Then, fiery and twisted, the dragon swiftly / shrithed towards its fate."
- "But the cruel monster constantly terrified / young and old, the dark death-shadow / lurked in ambush; he prowled the misty moors / at the dead of night; men do not know / where such hell-whisperers shrithe in their wanderings."
- "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."
- "I creep, I shrithe / on my devil's claws, / and sting whatever I touch."
Etymology
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *skrīþan, *skrīþaną
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ʃɹaɪð/
- British English: /ʃɹaɪð/