Reuthful

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Showing pity or compassion for someone who is suffering, in the manner of an archaic and poetic usage
2. Feeling or expressing sorrow and tenderness toward another's misfortune, a sense that older English writers used
3. Characterized by compassion and sympathy, especially toward someone in distress, as found in old literary texts

Etymology: Reuthful is an archaic English adjective meaning "full of pity," and its story is simply a matter of suffix. It is formed from "ruth," a noun meaning compassion or pity, plus the suffix "-ful," which means "full of." "Ruth" itself goes back to Old English "hrēow" (sorrow, pity), and the same root gave English the modern word "ruthless," which is "ruth" with the negative "-less" added, meaning without pity. The pairing of "reuth" and "ruth" is worth a note. Middle English spellings of "ruth" varied widely, including "reuth" and "reewthe," and "reuthful" appears in that period's writing as a regular formation, built the same way English builders made "truthful" from "truth" or "youthful" from "youth." Over the centuries "ruth" itself narrowed in common use to a few fixed phrases, such as "ruth" in the sense of pity and a few set expressions, while the adjective faded out of everyday speech.

Synonyms: compassionate, pitiful, merciful, tender, sorrowful

Antonyms: ruthless, merciless, pitiless, cruel, hard-hearted