Nith

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An old Scots and archaic English noun for envy, spite or malice toward someone else's good fortune
2. Obsolete term describing bitter resentment or envious hatred directed at another person's success
3. Archaic word for malicious envy, the sour feeling of grudging another person what they possess

Etymology: In Old Norse, "níð" was one of the gravest insults a person could receive. It meant slander or a public accusation of cowardice or unmanly conduct, and it could be carried out in a physical way. In Egil's saga, the poet Egil Skallagrímsson carves verses of abuse onto a pole, crowns it with a horse's head, and fixes it facing the land of King Eiríkr and his queen, so that the insult works like a curse on the people it targets. The same root gave Old English "nīþ," which meant hatred, enmity, or malice, and it is cognate with German "Neid," meaning envy. The Old English derivative "nīþing" was a term of contempt for a villain or coward, and it sharpened into a term of legal outlawry in Anglo-Saxon and Norse law. In Scots, "nith" survived with the sense of envy or spite, a meaning that recorded dictionaries of Scots still give. Modern English keeps the word only in dialect and historical writing.

Synonyms: nephew