loth (comparative lother, superlative lothest)

1. (Britain) Alternative form of loath

   I was loth to return to the office without the Henderson file.

   • a. 1472, Thomas Malory, “Capitulum Quintum”, in [Le Morte Darthur], book IV, [London: […] by William Caxton], published 31 July 1485, OCLC 71490786 ↗, leaf 62, verso; republished as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, Le Morte Darthur […], London: Published by David Nutt, […], 1889, OCLC 890162034 ↗, lines 10–13, page 124 ↗:

     I durſt ſaye that of his age ther is not in this land a better knyghte than he is nor of better condycions and lothe to doo ony wronge / and loth to take ony wronge

     (please add an English translation of this quote)

   • 1614, Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair (play), Induction:

     If there bee never a Servant-monster i' the Fayre, who can helpe it, he sayes ; nor a nest of Antiques ?   Hee is loth to make Nature afraid in his Playes, like those that beget Tales, Tempests, and such like Drolleries, […]

   • 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: […], London: Printed for Nath[aniel] Ponder […], OCLC 228725984 ↗; reprinted in The Pilgrim’s Progress (The Noel Douglas Replicas), London: Noel Douglas, […], 1928, OCLC 5190338 ↗, page 166 ↗:

     Then ſaid Faint-heart, Deliver thy Purſe; but he making no haſte to do it (for he was loth to loſe his Money,) Miſtrust ran up to him, and thruſting his hand into his Pocket, pull'd out thence a bag of Silver.

   • 1822, [Walter Scott], chapter IV, in Peveril of the Peak. [...] In Four Volumes, volume III, Edinburgh: Printed for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., OCLC 2392685 ↗, page 82 ↗:

     "And thereupon I pledge thee," said the young nobleman, "which on any other argument I were loth to do—thinking of Ned as somewhat the cut of a villain."

   • 1881, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “Alas, So Long!”, in Ballads and Sonnets, London: Ellis and White, […], OCLC 946729536 ↗, stanza 2, lines 9–13, pages 297–298 ↗:

     Ah! dear one, I've been old so long, / It seems that age is loth to part, / Though days and years have never a song, / And, oh! have they still the art / That warmed the pulses of heart to heart?

• (British) IPA: /ləʊt/

loth (plural loths)

1. (now, historical) A measure of weight formerly used in Germany, the Netherlands and some other parts of Europe, equivalent to half of the local ounce. [from 17th c.]
   • 1999, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, translating Paracelsus, Opus Paramirum, in Essential Readings, North Atlantic Books 1999, p. 100:

     It is not a matter of body but of virtues, which is why the fifth essence was invented, of which one loth is superior to the twenty pounds of the body from which it was extracted.

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