Definition of "sooth"
sooth1
noun
uncountable
(archaic) Truth.
Quotations
[…] "O Eginhard, discloseThe meaning and the mystery of the rose";And trembling he made answer: "In good sooth,Its mystery is love, its meaning youth!"
1873 August, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “[I. Tales of a Wayside Inn.] The Student’s Tale. Emma and Eginhard.”, in Aftermath, Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co., page 25
(obsolete) Augury; prognostication.
Quotations
(obsolete) Blandishment; cajolery.
adjective
comparative soother, superlative soothest
(archaic) True.
(obsolete) Pleasing; delightful; sweet.
Quotations
The soothest shepherd that e'er pip'd on plains
1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903,
sooth2
verb
third-person singular simple present sooths, present participle soothing, simple past and past participle soothed
Quotations
To be ſhort, a wretched and curſed generation they be; hypocrites, pretending friendſhip, but they can not skill of plaine dealing and franke ſpeech. Rich men they claw, ſooth up and flatter: the poore they contemne and deſpiſe.
1603, Plutarch, “Of the Nouriture and Education of Children”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Philosophie, Commonlie Called, The Morals […], London: […] Arnold Hatfield, page 15
Not ballad-ſinger plac’d above the croud, / Sings with a note ſo ſhrilling ſweet and loud, / Nor pariſh clerk who calls the pſalm ſo clear, / Like Bowzybeus ſooths th’ attentive ear.
1714, J[ohn] Gay, “Saturday; or, The Flights”, in The Shepherd’s Week. In Six Pastorals, London: […] R. Burleigh […], page 56, lines 47–50
“Wi’ hat in hand,” sweet lass, quo I, / “Wer't in my power to sooth thy sigh, / My hame-bor’d whistle I wad try, / An’ gie’t a screed, / Atween whar Tiviot murmurs by, / An’ bonny Tweed.”
1811, Andrew Scott, “Answer to Mr. J. M.’s Epistle”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, Kelso, Roxburghshire: […] Alexander Leadbetter, for the author; and sold by W[illiam] Creech, […], page 123
Elinor paid her every quiet and unobtrusive attention in her power; and she would have tried to sooth and tranquillize her still more, had not Marianne entreated her, with all the eagerness of the most nervous irritability, not to speak to her for the world.
1811, [Jane Austen], chapter VII, in Sense and Sensibility […], volume II, London: […] C[harles] Roworth, […], and published by T[homas] Egerton, […], page 100