sb. Orig. (and chiefly) Sc. Also 6 wrath, wrayth, wraithe, 7 wreath. [Of obscure origin.]
1. An apparition or specter of a dead person; a phantom or ghost.
1513. Douglas, Æneid, X. x. 112. Nor ȝit na vane wrathis nor gaistis quent Thi char constrenyt for to went. Ibid., xi. 93. In diuers placis The wraithis walkis of goistis that ar deyd.
a. 1585. Polwart, Flyting w. Montgomerie, 658. Thy speach … is espyed, That wrytes of witches, warlocks, wraiths, and wratches.
1786. Burns, ‘When Guilford good,’ viii. Chatham’s wraith, in heavenly graith,… cry’d, ‘Willie, rise!’
1808. Scott, Marm., VI. Introd. 146. In realms of death Ulysses meets Alcides’ wraith.
1861. E. S. Kennedy in Peaks, Passes & Glaciers, Ser. II. I. 170. She … died broken-hearted…. Afterwards, in the still of the evening,… the damsel’s wraith would enter the dairy department.
1866. Alger, Solit. Nat. & Man, IV. 288. While Winander, Fairfield and Rydal remain, to all visionary minds his [sc. Wordsworth’s] wraith will haunt them.
1893. T. E. Brown, Old John, etc., 44. While I … Drift vaporous to the ancient sea, A wraith, a film, a memory.
1900. A. Upward, Eben. Lobb, 226. Tall, pale and hollow-eyed, with gaunt cheek-bones,… like a wraith from an extinct world.
fig. 1880. G. Macdonald, Diary Old Soul, Feb. ix. Duty’s firm shape thins to a misty wraith.
b. An immaterial or spectral appearance of a living being, freq. regarded as portending that person’s death; a fetch.
1513. Douglas, Æneid, X. xi. 127. Thydder went this wrath or schaddo of Ene.
1597. Jas. VI., Dæmonol., III. i. 60. These kindes of spirites, when they appeare in the shaddow of a person … to die, to his friendes,… are called Wraithes in our language.
1691. R. Kirk, Secr. Commonwealth, i. § 7. 18. What the Low-countrey Scotts calls a Wreath, and the Irish Taibhshe or Death’s Messenger.
1772–3. R. Fergusson, To Mem. Dr. W. Wilkie, 35. I dream’t yestreen his deadly wraith I saw Gang by my ein as white’s the driven snaw…. I kent that it forespak approachin’ wae.
1802. Scott, Minstr. Scott. Bord., I. p. cxxxvi. The wraith … of a person shortly to die, is a firm article in the creed of Scotish superstition.
1824. Mrs. Grant, in Mem. & Corr. (1844), III. 66. A wraith … is the shadowy likeness of an absent living person.
1838. Lytton, Alice, XI. ii. As the shape of the warning wraith haunts the mountaineer.
1870. F. W. H. Myers, Poems 92.
| She and her love,—how dimly has she seen him | |
| Dark in a dream and windy in a wraith! |
1871. Tylor, Prim. Cult., I. 404. This is wellshown by the reception not only of a theory of ghosts, but of a special doctrine of ‘wraiths’ or ‘fetches.’
transf. 1849. C. Brontë, Shirley, xvii. An opposition procession was there entering, headed also by men in black…. ‘Is it our double?’ asked Shirley: ‘our manifold wraith?’
fig. 1850. Tennyson, In Mem., lxxii. 13. O hollow wraith of dying fame, Fade wholly, while the soul exults.
c. Without article.
1884. E. Gurney, in 19th Cent., 796. The coincidences of death and wraith are due to chance.
1898. H. Newbolt, Island Race, p. x.
| O Strength divine of Roman days, | |
| O Spirit of the Age of Faith, | |
| Go with our sons on all their ways | |
| When we long since are dust and wraith. |
2. A water-spirit.
1742, etc. [see WATER sb. 24 q].
1801. M. G. Lewis, Bothwell’s Bonny Jane, ii. I hear, with mournful yell, The wraiths of angry Clyde complain.
1832. J. Bree, St. Herbert’s Isle, 132. Wraiths and warlocks by the rush-grown mere.
1854. H. Miller, Sch. & Schm., x. (1858), 203. Highlanders … cutting down their corn, when the boding voice of the wraith was heard.
3. An appearance or configuration suggestive of a wraith or specter.
1882. Whittier, Storm on Lake Asquam, iii. A fire-veined darkness swept Over the … range; A wraith of tempest,… From peak to peak the cloudy giant stepped.
1912. L. Tracy, Mirabel’s Isl., i. Through the wraiths of scud he thought he had seen something.
4. attrib. and Comb., as wraith-land, -seeing, -spell; wraith-like adj.
1756. Yorkshire diary, in N. & Q. (1922), 390/2. For the warding off of all things whatsoever from the dead—be they imps, wraithspells, wick things and the like ket.
1865. J. Young, Homely Pictures, 126. Their leggies gat wraith-like, their cheekies gat death-like.
1871. Tylor, Prim. Cult., I. 405. In Silesia and the Tyrol the gift of wraith-seeing still flourishes.
1893. Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, 27 April. What challenges are prompted to the great … to come from their wraithlands!
