loathe
Formsloathes, loathing, loathed
Often confused with loath
- 1To hate someone or something intensely, with a feeling of disgust or contempt.
I loathe long meetings that could have been a single email.
The two rivals loathed each other from their first day in office.
Similardespise, abhor, abominate
Note
An old verb, from Old English lāþian, and stronger than hate: disgust is part of it, which puts it with abhor and abominate rather than with plain dislike. It takes a noun or an -ing form, as in loathe this place or loathe scrubbing toilets, and pairs readily with absolutely. George Whetstone in 1576 still spells it loath, a spelling the verb no longer uses.
- 2To cause a person to feel disgust.
How heartily he serves me! his face loathes one, But look upon his care, who would not love him?
1622, Thomas Middleton, William RowleyNote
An obsolete use in which the feeling runs the other way: the disgusting thing is the subject and the disgusted person the object. In Middleton and Rowley's The Changeling (1622) a servant's face loathes the speaker, though his care for her could win anyone's love. Present-day English keeps only the hating meaning; to say the older thing now, use disgust or sicken.
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Origin
From Middle English lothe, from Old English lāþian, from Proto-Germanic *laiþāną; related to Old Norse leiðask (Danish ledes, Icelandic leiðast) and German Leid.