loathed

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of loathe.

   The two neighbors had loathed each other for decades over a fence dispute.

   The new manager was quickly loathed by everyone on the night shift.

   Note

   A regular -ed form, serving as the simple past (they loathed each other) and after have or be (he was loathed by the night shift). Its object can be a person, a thing or an -ing form: she loathed waiting in line. The feeling always runs from the person to the thing now; an old use in which the thing loathed the person, making them feel disgust, has died out.

2. 2
   adjectivenonstandard

   Nonstandard form of loath.

   The coach admitted he was loathed to bench his top scorer before the final.

   "We're very loathed to raise prices again," the owner told the local paper.

   Note

   A slip in which the adjective for reluctance borrows the -ed of a past tense, so very loath to becomes very loathed to. It shows up in fiction, in scholarly prose and in sports reporting, where a manager is loathed to lose a key player. The standard wording is loath to, as in loath to leave; written loathed, the phrase is easily misread as hated, so careful writers avoid it.

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