The Word of the Day podcast for September 10th.
Today's word is loath, also pronounced loath and spelled L-O-A-T-H.
Loath is an adjective.
A person who is loath to do something is unwilling or reluctant to do that thing.
Here's the word used in a sentence from The Roma, A Traveling History by Madeline Potter.
On these runs, I was loath to stop.
I dreaded zebra crossings and the city center pavements and instead ran into the surrounding countryside,
abandoning myself to the endless roads that seemed to be going nowhere.
Loathe, as some language sticklers may be to accept it, indeed they may loathe the fact,
loathe, L-O-A-T-H-E, is an accepted though less common spelling variant of the adjective loathe, L-O-A-T-H.
The language sticklers know that loathe with an e is most often used as a verb, meaning to hate,
and their desire to keep the language tidy by letting loathe without the e alone mean not willing
or wanting to do something is understandable.
But here's the rub.
Language is very often untidy.
Both loathe and loathe with or without the e trace back to the old English word loth, meaning loathsome or disgusting.
Each has had a number of variant spellings over the years,
and for at least some portion of their history, each word has taken on the spelling of the other.
If you would like to keep the two distinct according to the prevailing preferences, remember
that loathe without the E is how you feel, reluctant or unwilling,