shrithe

English

WOTD – 19 June 2018

Etymology

Coined by English writer and translator Kevin Crossley-Holland (born 1941): a semi-learned borrowing from Old English sċrīþan (“to go; take one's way to a place; go about; wander”), from Proto-West Germanic *skrīþan, from Proto-Germanic *skrīþaną (“to walk, go, slither, crawl”). Cognate with Dutch schrijden (“to stride”), German schreiten (“to stride, step, proceed”), Icelandic skríða (“to slither, creep, crawl”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ʃɹaɪð/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪð

Verb

shrithe (third-person singular simple present shrithes, present participle shrithing, simple past and past participle shrithed)

1. (intransitive) To move; to proceed; to creep, roam, wander.
   • 1973, James Edwin Miller, England in Literature, →ISBN, page 14:

     He realized the monster meant to attack Heorot after the blue hour, when black night has settled over all— when shadowy shapes come shrithing dark beneath the clouds.

   • 1993, Betty Bonham Lies, “Writing about Literature through Poetry”, in The Poet’s Pen: Writing Poetry with Middle and High School Students, Portsmouth, N.H.: Teacher Ideas Press, Greenwood Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 159:

     Grendel to His Mother [by Kirsten Dabrowski] Oh momma, momma, I'm just not a winner, / 'Cause I got roughed up on my way to get dinner. / I shrithed to the Heorot to get human yummies / To tickle our palates and fill up our tummies.

   • 1999, “Beowulf”, in Richard [William] Barber, editor, Myths & Legends of the British Isles, Woodbridge, Suffolk, Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell Press, →ISBN, page 243:

     While the winged creature coiled himself up, / the friend and lord of men stood unflinching / by his shield; Beowulf waited ready armed. / Then, fiery and twisted, the dragon swiftly / shrithed towards its fate.

   • 1999, Kevin Crossley-Holland, edited by Heather O'Donoghue, Beowulf (Oxford World's Classics)‎^[1], Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN:

     But the cruel monster constantly terrified / young and old, the dark death-shadow / lurked in ambush; he prowled the misty moors / at the dead of night; men do not know / where such hell-whisperers shrithe in their wanderings.

   • 2003, Kevin Crossley-Holland, “The Most Bitter Day”, in King of the Middle March (Arthur; 3), London: Orion Children's Books, →ISBN; 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Arthur A. Levine Books, Scholastic Inc., 2004 October, →ISBN, page 349:

     An adder writhes out of the bush, I can see the diamonds on its back; it shrithes across the sandy soil, and bites the right foot of one of the knights.

   • 2009, Kevin Crossley-Holland, “Switzerland”, in The Hidden Roads: A Memoir of Childhood, London: Quercus, →ISBN:

     I creep, I shrithe / on my devil's claws, / and sting whatever I touch.

   • 2017, “[The Exeter Book] The Rhyming Poem”, in Craig Williamson, transl., The Complete Old English Poems, Philadelphia, P.A.: University of Pennsylvania Press, →ISBN, page 503, lines 55–57:

     Some secret curse comes shrithing / To the once blithe hall, sits on the soul / Where a treasure burns.

Related terms

• scrap
• scrape
• scree

 

Translations

to move; to make one's way (toward)

to creep — see creep

to go about, roam — see roam,‎ wander