Heting

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Archaic term for hatred or the act of hating someone ; an old word for a solemn promise or vow given to another person
2. Middle English word meaning hostility or deep dislike felt toward another ; a pledge or binding assurance once made by someone
3. An obsolete noun for intense animosity or the feeling of hating ; a formal vow or undertaking that a person gave in earlier English

Etymology: Heting is a Middle English spelling of the present participle of "hate", the form that would be "hating" in modern English. Its roots run deep: the Old English verb "hatian" and the noun "hete", meaning hatred or enmity, both descend from a Germanic word that also gave Gothic "hatan", Old Saxon "haten", and modern German "hassen". Hate is a native Germanic word, not a borrowing from Latin or French, which is why it looks so plain next to the many Latinate words for strong feelings. Middle English spelling was unstable, so "heting" appears alongside "hatinge", "hatyng", and similar variants. The "-ing" ending is the same suffix that marks the present participle in modern English, and the vowel reflects how Middle English speakers pronounced the stem.