Hatred

How to spell hatred

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce hatred

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hatred mean?

1. nounIntense, sustained dislike or hostility toward someone or something.

Hatred in a sentence

• The long feud bred a deep hatred between the two families.

• The new law was written to combat hatred directed at minority groups.

Where does hatred come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Hatred is built from the native English verb 'hate', which goes back to Old English 'hatian', meaning to regard with intense dislike, a word shared across the Germanic family. The ending '-red' is the real curiosity: it comes from the Old English suffix '-rǣden', meaning a condition, state, or reckoning, the same element that survives in 'kindred' (the state of being kin). So hatred literally meant 'the condition or state of hating'. The word took shape in Middle English around the 1200s as the abstract noun for the feeling itself. That fossilised '-red' ending is exactly why the spelling can trip writers, since the more familiar abstract suffix would be '-ed' or '-ness'; remembering its cousin 'kindred' fixes the unusual ending in mind.

How the word is built

• hate (from Old English hatian: to hate)
• -red (from Old English -rǣden: condition or state)