athirst

English

Etymology

From Old English ofþyrst, past participle of ofþyrstan (“to smart from thirst”), equivalent to a- (“of”, Etymology 8) +‎ thirst (verb).

Pronunciation

(UK) IPA^(key): /əˈθəːst/
Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)st

Adjective

athirst (comparative more athirst, superlative most athirst)

(archaic) Thirsty.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Revelation 21:6:
  I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
- 1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], “Old Maids”, in Shirley. A Tale. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, page 264:
  To this extenuated spectre, perhaps, a crumb is not thrown once a year; but when ahungered and athirst to famine—when all humanity has forgotten the dying tenant of a decaying house—Divine Mercy remembers the mourner, […]
- 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Chapter 1”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
  Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.
(figuratively) Eager or extremely desirous (for something).
- 1817, John Keats, Sonnet (Written on a blank space at the end of Chaucer’s tale of ‘The Floure And The Leafe’‎^[1]:
  I, that forever feel athirst for glory,
  Could at this moment be content to lie
  Meekly upon the grass, as those whose sobbings
  Were heard of none beside the mournful robins.
- 1878, Algernon Charles Swinburne, “Ave Atque Vale (In Memory of Charles Baudelaire)”, in Poems and Ballads, Second Series‎^[2], Stanza IV:
  O sleepless heart and sombre soul unsleeping,
  That were athirst for sleep and no more life
  And no more love, for peace and no more strife!
- 1913, Rabindranath Tagore, The Gardener, translated from the Bengali by the author, 5,^[3]
  I am restless. I am athirst for far-away things.
  
  My soul goes out in a longing to touch the skirt of the dim distance.

Derived terms

unathirst

Anagrams

ratshit, rattish, tartish, tirthas