[‘ Of a person or his or her actions: quick, prompt; eager, vehement.']
Pronunciation: Brit. /reɪð/, U.S. /reɪð/, ræθ
Forms: OE *hraðe* plural, OE *hreð* see note below, lOE *hræþe* /Kentish/, plural, ME *raþe*, ME *vanth* transmission error, ME– *rath* now Eng. regional, ME– *rathe*, 16 *raith*, 18 *raaye* /Irish English/ (south.), 18– *rave* /Eng. regional/ (Somerset); /Sc./ pre-17 *raith*, pre-17 18 *rath*, pre-17 18– *rathe*.
Etymology:Variant of rad adj.1 In Middle English probably partly also < rathe adv. For the uses of the comparative and superlative see rather adj. and rathest adj.
The variant is poorly attested in Old English (the usual form being hræd/ rad adj.1): only securely in two examples rendering the same passage in /Psalms (see quots. OE, lOE at sense 1), and in a third example in Daniel, where emendation to rathe adv. (or rethe adj.) has been suggested:
OE /Daniel/ 619 Siððan him [/sc./ Nabochodonossor] nið godes, hreð [/perh. read/ hreðe] of heofonum, hete gesceode.
The word is not attested at all between the end of the Old English period and the 15th cent., although currency may be implied by surnames (compare Iohanna, filia Roberti le Rath (1290–1), Rob. Rathebayn (1317–27)).
Now rare (chiefly lit. and Eng. regional).
*1.* Of a person or his or her actions: quick, prompt; eager, vehement.
OE King Ælfred tr. /Psalms/ (Paris) (2001) xiii. 6 Heora fet beoð swiðe hraðe blod to ageotanne.
lOE /Canterbury Psalter/ xiii. 3 /Veloces pedes eorum ad effundendum sanguinem/ : hiræ fet hræþe uel snelle to ægiotænæ uel to scedende blod.
c/1425 (▸c1400) /Laud Troy-bk./ 10448 (/MED), Achilles was al to rathe, Armed wel & redi dight.
c/1440 (▸?a1400) /Sir Perceval/ (1930) 98 (/MED), Was noȝte þe Rede Knyghte so rathe For to wayte hym with skathe.
?/c/1450 /Life St. Cuthbert/ (1891) 6442 (MED), To reule þaim wele he was full rathe.
a/1525 (▸c1448) R. Holland /Bk. Howlat/ l. 835 in W. A. Craigie /Asloan MS/ (1925) II. 121 The tuchet gird to ye golk..Raif his taile fra his rig with a rath [1568 /Bannatyne rathe] pleid.
1575 G. Gascoigne /Dan Bartholomew/ in /Wks./ (1587) 66 In deede the rage which wrong him there was rathe.
1817 Scott /Rob Roy/ I. vii. 145 Art there, lad?—aye, youth’s aye rathe—but look to thysel.
1948 E. Pound /Pisan Cantos/ lxxxi. 99 Pull down thy vanity, Rathe to destroy, niggard in charity.
*2.*
*a.* Early; done or occurring before the usual or natural time.
Originally with too: cf. rathe adv. 1b.
1340 /Ayenbite/ (1866) 52 (MED), Me zeneȝeþ ine to raþe arizinge uor to ethene.
▸?1440 tr. Palladius /De Re Rustica/ (Duke Humfrey) (1896) i. 247 (MED), Tilyng..Is not to rathe [L. /cito/] yf dayis thryis fyue Hit be preuent.
1584 T. Cogan /Hauen of Health/ ccxlii. 255 (margin) Rathe marriage is the cause why men be nowe of lesse stature than they haue beene before time.
1609 C. Butler /Feminine Monarchie/ v. sig. E5v, Those swarmes..if they be rathe wil swarme againe, vnlesse they bee over-hived.
1670 J. Ray /Coll. Eng. Prov./ 22 The rath sower ne’re borrows o’ th’ late.
1776 W. Tans’ur /Beauties of Poetry/ ii. 50 /Rathe/, early, coming before the Time.
1816 Scott /Antiquary/ III. x. 214 Laying his head in a rath grave.
1833 H. Coleridge /Poems/ I. 13 A rathe December blights my lagging May.
1886 /W. Somerset Word-bk./ (at cited word), The expression..a rave spring..is not uncommon.
1928 T. Hardy /Winter Words/ 158 And now comes Einstein with a notion..That’s there’s no time, no space, no motion, Nor rathe nor late, Nor square nor straight, But just a sort of bending-ocean.
*b.* Of a flower, fruit, etc.: growing, blooming, or ripening early in the year. Cf. rathe-ripe adj.
1572 L. Mascall /Bk. Plant & Graffe Trees/ 56 For to haue rathe or timely Peares… For to haue them rath or soone, ye shall graffe them on the Pine tree.
1600 E. B. in /Englands Helicon/ sig. Bivv, And made the rathe and timely Primrose grow.
1638 Milton /Lycidas/ in /Obsequies/ 24 in /Justa Edouardo King/, Bring the rathe primerose that forsaken dies.
1786 J. H. Tooke /Επεα Πτεροεντα/ x. 506 We have also in English the expression of rath fruits.
1813 Scott /Rokeby/ iv. 155 Where..the rathe primrose decks the mead.
1848 J. R. Lowell /Fable for Critics/ in /Poet. Wks./ (1880) 357 A single anemone trembly and rathe.
1881 /Cent. Mag./ Nov. 79 The earth is moving in her green delight—Her spiritual crocuses shoot through, And rathe hepaticas in rose and blue.
*3.* Belonging to or forming the first part of a period of time; esp. early in the day, belonging to the dawn or morning.
a/1425 (▸?a1396) R. Maidstone /Paraphr. Seven Penitential Psalms/ (BL Add. 39574) 299 in M. Day /Wheatley MS/ (1921) 32 (/MED), Alle the day, bothe late and rathe, Thei thoght on gyle.
1565 J. Hall tr. Lanfranc /Most Excellent Woorke Chirurg./ Antidotarie i. 48 Lettinge it stande so all nyghte, and in the mornynge rathe, strayne it againe, and so administer it warme.
1605 M. Drayton /Legend Robert Duke of Normandie/ in /Poems/ sig. Dd2v, The rathe morning newly but awake.
1635 J. Hayward tr. G. F. Biondi /Donzella Desterrada/ 191 Intending to aske her what shee made there at so rathe an houre.
1830 J. Hogg /Highland Eclogue/ in /Gem/ 195 Beginning thy rath orisons here.
1877 J. A. Symonds /Fine Arts/ in /Renaissance in Italy/ (1897) III. iii. 110 The rathe tints of early dawn.
1898 S. R. Crockett /Standard Bearer/ xxxi. 279 The young ardour of spring and the rath summer-time.
1914 C. Mackenzie /Sinister St./ II. iii. xiv. 787 Spring on these rathe mornings of wind and scudded blue sky was forward with her traceries.