Other forms: scathing
To scathe is to injure or to wither with criticism. Scathed by the review, scathe his reputation, come off unscathed.
The verb is rare and the forms around it are everywhere: unscathed means unharmed and scathing means savagely critical. It came from an Old Norse word for harm, and the sense of physical injury has faded almost entirely in favour of the verbal kind.
1verbscatheTo injure or to wither with criticism.
“The critics scathed the new play, calling it dull and far too long.”
scathe is a harming.
From Old Norse skatha, to harm, and Old English sceathian. The noun scathe meant harm or injury.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)keh₁t- — damage, harm
Proto-Germanic
*skaþô — damage, scathe; one who causes damage, injurer
Old Norse
skaði — damage, harm; loss; death; murder
Middle English
scath
English, today
scathe
Built from
From Middle English scath, scathescade, scate, schath, schathe, schatht, sckathe, skade, skaith, skaithe, skagh, skate, skath, skathe, (Northern England, Northwest Midlands, Scotland) scaith, scaithe, schaithe, schath, schathe, skaith, skaithe, skaitht, (in names) scait, skeithe, from Old Norse skaði (“damage, harm; loss; death; murder”), from Proto-Germanic skaþô (“damage, scathe; one who causes damage, injurer”) (whence Old English sċeaþa, sċeaþu (“scathe, harm, injury”)), from Proto-Indo-European (s)keh₁t- (“damage, harm”). Cognate with German Schaden (“damage, harm”). 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire