Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. Archaic Uttered; said. Used only in the first and third persons, with the subject following: "Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore!'” ( Edgar Allan Poe).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Preterit of quethe.
Wiktionary
- v. Simple past of quethe.; said
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. Said; spoke; uttered; -- used only in the first and third persons in the past tenses, and always followed by its nominative, the word or words said being the object.
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Old English cwǣth, third person sing. past tense of cwethan, to say; see gwet- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“Sultan’; and again quoth he, ‘If calamity befal one who is not pure by ablution; verily and assuredly let him blame none but himself.’”
“If a whale can go through that channel, I can," quoth "Cap'n Nat.”
“Not in _ein_ t'ousand year," quoth "Dutch" Tischer, Callahan's alternate on the fast mail.”
“(Sayeth I: if it has "quoth" in the title, it's gotta be good.)”
“While the company warned that this might not continue indefinitely — quoth the prospectus, "sellers may become increasingly sophisticated about the valuation and prices of their forests and may demand higher premiums for high quality forests" — that loss of advantage isn't necessarily inevitable or imminent.”
The Wall Street Journal: China's Forest Versus Hong Kong's Trees
“Cool, urban Alec Baldwin has decided to go and chat to his mates about stuff; "the chatshow guest turns host", quoth the blurb.”
“They obviously didn’t get the message that the Pentagon is narrowing its capabilities to fighting one, not two wars, because they all want to go mano a mano with Ahmadinejad “make my day,” quoth the Hermanator.”
The Huffington Post: John Feffer: Republican Heavy Metal: The Apocalyptics
“To look around and get out of your freaking country and on to Pointe Noire in Congo, quoth I.”
“Time for me to hold forth: "Every country should hold up Ethiopian officials for three hours at their airports, not the ordinary people of course," quoth I.”
“He's very complimentary on Anya's direction, and really likes the second look that Josh has created which is actually very Bert-like, a beautiful orange color and all classic draping "quite frankly rather sublime," quoth Tim.”
karmicunderpath quoth the raven 'nevermore' Aug 21, 2007