wraith, n.
Forms:
Also 15 wrath, wrayth, wraithe, 16 wreath.(Show Less)
Frequency (in current use):
Show frequency band information
Etymology: Of obscure origin.
Originally (and chiefly) Scottish.
1.
a. An apparition or spectre of a dead person; a phantom or ghost.
1513 G. Douglas tr. Virgil Æneid x. x. 112
Nor ȝit na vane wrathis nor gaistis quent Thi char constrenyt for to went.
1513 G. Douglas tr. Virgil Æneid x. xi. 93
In diuers placis The wraithis walkis of goistis that ar deyd.
a1585 Ld. Polwart Flyting with Montgomerie 658
Thy speach..is espyed, That wrytes of witches, warlocks, wraiths, and wratches.
1787 R. Burns Poems
(new ed.)
314
Chatham's wraith, in heavenly graith..cry'd, ‘Willie, rise!’
1808 W. Scott Marmion vi. Introd. 306
In realms of death Ulysses meets Alcides' wraith.
1861 E. S. Kennedy in Peaks, Passes & Glaciers 2nd Ser. I. 170
She..died broken-hearted... Afterwards, in the still of the evening,..the damsel's wraith would enter the dairy department.
1866 W. R. Alger Solitudes Nature & Man iv. 288
While Winander, Fairfield and Rydal remain, to all visionary minds his [sc. Wordsworth's] wraith will haunt them.
1893 T. E. Brown Old John & Other Poems 44
While I.. Drift vaporous to the ancient sea, A wraith, a film, a memory.
1900 A. Upward Ebenezer Lobb 226
Tall, pale and hollow-eyed, with gaunt cheek-bones,..like a wraith from an extinct world.
figurative.
1880 G. MacDonald Bk. of Strife 33
Duty's firm shape thins to a misty wraith.
1513—1900(Hide quotations)
b. An immaterial or spectral appearance of a living being, frequently regarded as portending that person's death; a fetch.
1513 G. Douglas tr. Virgil Æneid x. xi. 127
Thydder went this wrath or schaddo of Ene.
1597 King James VI & I Daemonologie iii. i. 60
These kindes of spirites, when they appeare in the shaddow of a person..to die, to his friendes,..are called Wraithes in our language.
a1692 R. Kirk Secret Commonw. in M. Hunter Occult Lab.
(2001)
iii. 83
What the Low-countrey-Scot calls a Wreath, and the Irish éug or deaths Messenger.
1773 R. Fergusson Poems 94
I dreamt yestreen his deadly wraith I saw Gang by my ein as white's the driven snaw... I kent that it forspak approachin wae.
1802 W. Scott Minstrelsy Sc. Border I. p. cxxxvi
The wraith..of a person shortly to die, is a firm article in the creed of Scotish superstition.
1824 A. Grant Let. 19 Aug. in Mem. & Corr.
(1844)
III. 66
A wraith..is the shadowy likeness of an absent living person.
1838 E. Bulwer-Lytton Alice III. xi. ii. 251
As the shape of the warning wraith haunts the mountaineer.
1870 F. W. H. Myers Poems 92
She and her love,—how dimly has she seen him Dark in a dream and windy in a wraith!
1871 E. B. Tylor Primitive Culture I. 404
This is well~shown by the reception not only of a theory of ghosts, but of a special doctrine of ‘wraiths’ or ‘fetches’.
in extended use.
1849 C. Brontë Shirley II. vi. 139
An opposition procession was there entering, headed also by men in black... ‘Is it our double?’ asked Shirley: ‘our manifold wraith?’
figurative.
1850 Ld. Tennyson In Memoriam lxxi. 100
O hollow wraith of dying fame, Fade wholly, while the soul exults.
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1513—1871(Hide quotations)
c. Without article.
1884 E. Gurney in 19th Cent. 796
The coincidences of death and wraith are due to chance.
1898 H. Newbolt Island Race p. x
O Strength divine of Roman days, O Spirit of the Age of Faith, Go with our sons on all their ways When we long since are dust and wraith.
1884—1898(Hide quotations)
2. A water-spirit.
1755 R. Forbes Jrnl. London to Portsmouth in tr. Ovid Ajax his Speech
(new ed.)
30
You wou'd hae taen me for a water-wreath, or some gruous ghaist.
1801 M. G. Lewis Bothwell's Bonny Jane ii
I hear, with mournful yell, The wraiths of angry Clyde complain.
1832 J. Bree St. Herbert's Isle 132
Wraiths and warlocks by the rush-grown mere.
1854 H. Miller Schools & Schoolmasters
(1858)
x. 203
Highlanders..cutting down their corn, when the boding voice of the wraith was heard.
1755—1854(Hide quotations)
3. An appearance or configuration suggestive of a wraith or spectre.
1882 J. G. Whittier Storm on Lake Asquam iii
A fire-veined darkness swept Over the..range; A wraith of tempest,..From peak to peak the cloudy giant stepped.
1912 L. Tracy Mirabel's Isl. i
Through the wraiths of scud he thought he had seen something.
1882—1912(Hide quotations)
Compounds
attributive and in other combinations, as wraith-land, wraith-seeing, wraith-ship, wraith-spell; wraith-like adj.
1756 Yorkshire diary in Notes & Queries
(1922)
390/2
For the warding off of all things whatsoever from the dead—be they imps, wraithspells, wick things and the like ket.
1865 J. Young Homely Pictures in Verse 126
Their leggies gat wraith-like, their cheekies gat death-like.
1871 E. B. Tylor Primitive Culture I. 405
In Silesia and the Tyrol the gift of wraith-seeing still flourishes.
1893 Columbus
(Ohio)
Dispatch 27 Apr.
What challenges are prompted to the great..to come from their wraithlands!
1924 V. F. Boyson Falkland Islands viii. 181
Dimly as she came, so she passed away, as though in very truth the wraithship said to appear at every British naval fight.
1756—1924(Hide quotations)
