lithe

• IPA^(key): /laɪð/, (US also) /laɪθ/, (nonstandard) /lɪθ/ (compare lissom)

• Audio (UK):

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• Rhymes: -aɪð

From Middle English lithe, from Old English līþe (“gentle, mild”), from Proto-West Germanic *linþ(ī), from Proto-Germanic *linþaz, from Proto-Indo-European *lentos. Akin to Saterland Frisian lied (“thin, skinny, gaunt”), Danish, Dutch, and archaic German lind (“mild”). Some sources also list Latin lenis (“soft”) and/or Latin lentus (“supple”) as possible cognates.

lithe (comparative lither, superlative lithest)

1. (obsolete) Mild; calm.

   Synonyms: clement, gentle, mellow

   lithe weather

2. Slim but not skinny.

   Synonyms: lithesome, lissome, swack; see also Thesaurus:slender

   lithe body

   • 1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider ”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A Munsey Company, , published 1915, →OCLC, chapter III (Accessory After the Fact), page 382, column 2:

     She was frankly disappointed. For some reason she had expected to discover a burglar of one or another accepted type—either a dashing cracksman in full-blown evening dress, lithe, polished, pantherish, or a common yegg, a red-eyed, unshaven, burly brute in the rags and tatters of a tramp.

   • 1997, David Foster Wallace, “Getting Away From Already Pretty Much Being Away From It All”, in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Kindle edition, Little, Brown Book Group:

     The coaches are grim, tan, lithe-looking women, clearly twirlers once, on the far side of their glory now and very serious-looking, each with a clipboard and whistle.

3. Capable of being easily bent; flexible.

   Synonyms: pliant, flexible, limber; see also Thesaurus:flexible

   the elephant’s lithe trunk.

   • 1861, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Elsie Venner, page 125

     … she danced with a kind of passionate fierceness, her lithe body undulating with flexuous grace …

   • 1900, Grant Allen, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter VIII, in Hilda Wade:

     Doolittle and myself waited. Colebrook kept on cautiously, squirming his long body in sinuous waves like a lizard's through the grass, and was soon lost to us. No snake could have been lither.

4. Adaptable.
   • 2018 March 8, Eric Asimov, “Bubbles, With Joy: Pétillant Naturel’s Triumphant Return”, in The New York Times‎:

     Yet the 2016 Éxilé rosé from Lise et Bertrand Jousset in the Loire Valley, made mostly of gamay, was yeasty let light and lithe, while the 2016 Indigeno from Ancarani in Emilia-Romagna, made of trebbiano, was taut and earthy.

• litheness
• slithy

• -inda
• lind
• linden
• Linda

From Middle English lithen, from Old English līþian, līþiġian (“to soften, calm, mitigate, assuage, appease, be mild”), from Proto-Germanic *linþijaną (“to soften”), from Proto-Indo-European *lento- (“bendsome, resilient”). Cognate with German lindern (“to alleviate, ease, relieve”).

lithe (third-person singular simple present lithes, present participle lithing, simple past and past participle lithed)

1. (intransitive, obsolete) To become calm.
2. (transitive, obsolete) To make soft or mild; soften; alleviate; mitigate; lessen; smooth; palliate.
   • a. 1652, Thomas Adams, Physic from Heaven:

     England.. hath now suppled, lithed and stretched their throats.

   • 1642, Daniel Rogers, Naaman the Syrian: His Disease and Cure:

     Give me also faith, Lord,.. to lithe, to form, and to accommodate my spirit and members.

From Middle English lithen, from Old Norse hlýða (“to listen”), from Proto-Germanic *hliuþijaną (“to listen”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱlew- (“to hear”). Cognate with Danish lytte (“to listen”). Related to Old English hlēoþor (“noise, sound, voice, song, hearing”), Old English hlūd (“loud, noisy, sounding, sonorous”). More at loud.

• lythe

lithe (third-person singular simple present lithes, present participle lithing, simple past and past participle lithed)

1. (intransitive, obsolete) To attend; listen, hearken.
2. (transitive) To listen to, hearken to.

Uncertain; perhaps an alteration of lewth.

lithe (plural lithes)

1. (Scotland) Shelter.
   • 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song:

     So Cospatric got him the Pict folk to build a strong castle there in the lithe of the hills, with the Grampians dark and bleak behind it, and he had the Den drained and he married a Pict lady and got on her bairns and he lived there till he died.

From Old English liðan.

lithe (third-person singular simple present lithes, present participle lithing, simple past and past participle lithed)

1. (archaic, dialect, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire) to thicken (gravy, etc.)
   • 1902, Joseph Wright, The English Dialect Dictionary, Oxford University Press, page 624:

     lithe widely used as a verb in nEng Sc and Ir, as a noun only in Cu

   • 1933, C.T. Onions, editor, The Oxford English Dictionary, Clarendon Press, page 344:

     to render lithe or thick, to thicken (broth, etc.)

   • 1994, Arnold Kellett, The English Dialect Dictionary, Smith Settle, page 105

     lithe 'to thicken soups, sauces, etc.'

   • 1994, Clive Upton, David Parry, J.D.A. Widdowson, Survey of English Dialects: The Dictionary and Grammar, Croom Helm:

     lithe vt to THICKEN gravy V7.7 la:ð Y, laɪð Y Nt L, laɪð La Nt L

• Leith, Theil, Thiel, lieth

lithe (plural lithes)

1. Alternative form of light

lithe

1. Alternative form of lyth