Wednesday, February 12, 2014

sooth

sooth \sooth\, noun:

1. truth, reality, or fact.

adjective:
1. true or real.

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.
-- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, 1600
But in the young man's heart there was no answering gladness, though in very sooth she was an exceeding handsome maid.
-- Samuel Rutherford Crockett, The Lilac Sunbonnet: A Love Story, 1895

Sooth derives from the Old English soð meaning "truth, justice; reality." It shares this root with the word soothe, as reflected in soothe's earliest sense, "to verify."

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