wraith means A ghost or specter, especially a person's likeness seen just after their death. It carries an Arena rating of 1860, earned across 44 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, wraith ranks #157 of 42,747 for Qualifying, #462 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #531 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #584 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words.
wraith is pronounced /ɹeɪθ/.
Why “wraith” is a great word
A ghost or specter, especially the apparition of a person seen just before or after their death. Borrowed from Middle Scots wraith (first attested 1513); ultimate origin uncertain, possibly a transferred use of Middle Scots wraith, wrath (“anger, rage”), connecting it to writhe and making it a doublet of wrath and wroth, with some older sources comparing it to Old Norse vǫrðr (“guardian”). Unlike "specter," which suggests a general, often menacing haunting, or "phantom," a broad illusion of insubstantiality, a wraith is the specific, personal image inseparable from the moment of a life’s turning: the familiar silhouette glimpsed through rain-streaked glass as breath fails, the grey figure on the landing stairs at the hour of a faraway accident, the cold hand felt at a wedding that will become a funeral. It is the stark, solitary witness to the private boundary between being and memory.
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle Scots wraith, first attested in 1513 in a translation of the Aeneid. The word has no certain etymology; it may be a transferred use of Middle Scots wraith, wrath (nominally "anger, rage", adjectivally "angry, wrathful"), thus connecting it to writhe and making it a doublet of wrath and wroth. The old Century Dictionary compares Old Norse vǫrðr (“guardian”).
noun
- A ghost or specter, especially a person's likeness seen just after their death.e.g.“We might indeed have been the wraiths of the departed dead upon the dead sea of that dying planet for all the sound or sign we made in passing.” — 1912 February–July, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Under the Moons of Mars”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as “Sola Tells Me Her Story”, in A Princess of Mars, Chic
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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