Rewitan

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Old English verb meaning to reproach, scold or rebuke a person for a fault or wrongdoing
2. An archaic term for chiding someone sharply and holding them to account for an offence
3. Used in Old English to express blaming or censuring another for a wrong they have committed

Etymology: Rewitan is an Old English verb meaning "to reward" or "to requite," and it is the ancestor of modern English "reward," though the modern word arrived by a route that changed its meaning along the way. The Old English verb was built from "re-" (a prefix related to the Latin "re-" but native to Germanic) and "witan," a verb meaning "to observe, to look after, to keep watch," which is also the root of "wit" in its older sense of knowing or perceiving. The original idea was a kind of watchful return: to pay back what someone had done, with the sense of keeping careful account. Over time the verb took on a more specific meaning of giving something in return for service or merit, and the sense of a prize or recompense for good deeds gradually dominated. Old French contributed a parallel form, "reguerdon," and this is why English has both "reward" and the rarer, more formal "guerdon," which survives mainly in poetry. The two forms are doublets, the same word having entered English by separate paths.