forworth means to perish, forfare; come to nought or ruin; go wrong. It carries an Arena rating of 1559, earned across 12 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, forworth ranks #561 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #975 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #1,224 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #1,583 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words.
Why “forworth” is a great word
To perish or degenerate, to pass gradually from a state of integrity into ruin. From Old English forweorþan, from the prefix for- ("away, wrongly") + weorþan ("to become"). Unlike "perish," which declares a final, often sudden end, or "degenerate," which charts a moral or qualitative decline, forworth is the quiet, patient verb of dissolution, the slow unbecoming. It is the timber softening to sponge and rot, the family name fading to a whisper in a parish record, the residual warmth fading from a hearthstone that will never be lit again—the silent, granular evidence of a world passing irrevocably out of being.
Etymology
From Middle English forworthen, from Old English forweorþan (“to perish, pass away, vanish; deteriorate, sicken”), from Proto-Germanic *frawerþaną (“to perish, come to ruin”), equivalent to for- (“away, wrongly, badly”) + worth (“to turn into, become”). Cognate with Dutch verworden.
verb
- To perish, forfare; come to nought or ruin; go wrong.
- To degenerate (into); become (something inferior); come to.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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