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couth

adj
/ˈkuːθ/

Etymology

From Middle English couth (“familiar, known; evident, true; famous, respected, well-known; genteel, having good manners”), from Old English cūþ (“familiar, intimate, known, usual; certain, plain, manifest; famous, noted, well-known; excellent; friendly; related”), past participle of cunnan (“to be familiar with, know; can, to be able, know how”), from Proto-Germanic *kunnaną (“to be familiar with, know, recognize; to be able, know how”) (compare *kunþaz (“known”)), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵneh₃- (“to know”). The word is cognate with Dutch kond (“known”), Saterland Frisian cut (“known”), Gothic 𐌺𐌿𐌽𐌸𐍃 (kunþs, “known”), Icelandic kuður, kunnur (“known”), Latin gnosco (“to know”), Old High German kund, chund, chunt, Middle High German kunt (modern German kund (“known”)), Old Saxon kūth, cûth, cuð (“known; famous, renowned”), Scots couth (“familiar, known”); and is a doublet of could.

  1. derived from *ǵneh₃-✻
  2. inherited from *kunnaną✻
  3. inherited from cūþ
  4. inherited from couth

Definitions

  1. Familiar, known

    Familiar, known; well-known, renowned.

  2. Variant of couthie.

  3. Marked by or possessing a high degree of sophistication

    Marked by or possessing a high degree of sophistication; cultured, refined.

    • So Dennis May thrilled me in a recent issue when he described Raymond Mays' 1939 E.R.A. racer as a "couth" little Merc-like model.
    • Yet the dancers are beautiful, their cool movement has a couth simplicity, and there are moments when a gesture of almost absolute beauty stands transfixed in some transom of sublime comprehension.
  4. ›+ 2 more definitions

    1. Social grace, refinement, sophistication

      Social grace, refinement, sophistication; etiquette, manners.

      • That man has no couth.
      • My daughters have long and inappropriately been members of the Committee to Reform Dad's Hygiene, taking me to task for my supposed lack of couth.

    2. A person with social graces

      A person with social graces; a refined or sophisticated person.

      • We transformed the uncouths into couths, the unkempts into kempts, the inerts into erts! We did it all by speaking to teen-agers on their own terms and in their own language.
      • I'm going to hit that "Gulf of Texas" beach with a bundle of couths and suaves because those Texas gals that hang around the big shrimp boats are used to good living.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for couth. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA