aroint means avaunt; begone; go away; leave! It carries an Arena rating of 1648, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, aroint ranks #106 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #546 of 17,151 for The Improbable, #640 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words, #1,460 of 17,163 for Funniest Words.
aroint is pronounced /əˈɹɔɪnt/.
Why “aroint” is a great word
A command to depart, or to drive something away. Its origin is unknown, first attested in Shakespeare's "King Lear" (c. 1605-1606). Various speculative origins have been proposed, including a possible corruption of "anoint" (in reference to a witch's ointment) or a derivation from a phrase involving "rowan tree," thought to repel witches. Unlike the neutral "depart" or the brusque modern "scram," "aroint" is an archaic imperative laced with contempt and the uncanny. It is the word hissed from a storm-lashed heath, the salt scattered on a threshold, the futile defiance shouted at a thickening fog—a relic from a time when to banish was not merely to send away, but to cast back into the dark from which it came.
Etymology
Uncertain, and subject to various attempts to connect it to multiple Germanic and Romance etymons; first attested in the First Folio, and sometimes posited to be an error for anoint, referring to a witch’s supposed flight-facilitating ointment, and thus being a commandment for her to anele herself and fly away; also said to be taken from the phrase rowan tree, thought to dispel witches.
verb
- avaunt; begone; go away; leave!e.g.“And aroynt thee Witch, aroynt thee.” — c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, publishe
- to dispel; to send away.e.g.“Whiskered cats arointed flee,
Sturdy stoppers keep from thee
Cologne distillations.” — 1844, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, To Flush, My Dog:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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