Loathing

How to spell loathing

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce loathing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does loathing mean?

1. nounA feeling of intense dislike, disgust, or revulsion toward someone or something.

Loathing in a sentence

• Her loathing of dishonest colleagues coloured every meeting.

• He felt a deep loathing for the cruelty he had witnessed.

Where does loathing come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the Old English adjective lāth, which meant 'hostile, hateful, or repugnant', and the related verb lāthian, 'to be hateful' or 'to detest'. The same Germanic root sits behind the modern adjective 'loath' (meaning unwilling or reluctant) and the verb 'loathe' (to feel disgust toward), all of which share that ancient sense of something being repellent. The noun 'loathing' was formed by attaching the suffix '-ing' to the verb, capturing the ongoing state of intense aversion rather than a single act. By the late medieval period English writers were using it freely for deep revulsion, often paired with horror or dread. The spelling trap lives in the silent 'a' after the 'lo', a remnant of the older lāth, and in the soft 'th' sound spelled 'th' that the '-ing' ending follows.

How the word is built

• loath(e) (from Old English lāth: hateful, hostile)
• -ing (noun suffix forming a state or activity)