troth — English Dictionary

Noun

1. An oath, pledge, plight, or promise.

   Usage

   • Archaic
   • Countable

   Examples

   By my troth I care not, a man can die but once, we owe God a death, [...]

   And by my faith and troth I have a good part of a mind to have thee beaten for thine insolence!

   More examples (1)

   Hagen of Troneg now foully broke his troth to Siegfried.

2. An oath, pledge, plight, or promise. A pledge or promise to marry someone.

   Usage

   • Archaic
   • Countable

   Examples

   More examples (3)

   ...I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time, Unfetter'd by the sense of crime, To whom a conscience never wakes; Nor, what may count itself as blest, The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;...

   It follows, as a natural consequence, that the two who stood alone in the new faith, [...] should, finally, make mutual confession of the passion that had surprised both, in the early pride of man and womanhood; should exchange rings, and plight troths where the pleasaunce joined the river, as young lovers do still probably exchange rings and plight troths, by the old Cheshire river.

   Vendemer’s sole fortune is his genius, and he and Paule, who confessed to an answering flame, plighted their troth like a pair of young rustics or (what comes for French people to the same thing) young Anglo-Saxons.

3. An oath, pledge, plight, or promise. The state of being thus pledged; betrothal, engagement.

   Usage

   • Archaic
   • Countable

   Examples

   I did, therefore, what an honest man should; restored the maiden her troth, and departed the country, in the service of my king.

4. Truth; something true.

   Usage

   • Archaic
   • Countable
   • Uncountable

   Examples

   More examples (1)

   [John] Martiall, much like to Virgil's Sinon, (of whom he took a precedent, to make an artificial lie,) for three leaves together, in his preface, telleth undoubted trothes; to the end that the falsehoods, which, foolishly, (God wot,) he doth infer, may have the more credit.

   I can̄ot lerne Banister's confession upon the racke as yet; but he was put to the racke for denying of moost manifest trothes at the first.

   More examples (1)

   The suddaine recouerie of my distressed Maister, whome latelie you left in a Traunce (Most excellent Princes!) hath made me at one tyme the hastie messenger of three trothes, your miracle, his mending, & my mirthe.

   Troth but it was fitting speech for the moonlight: moonlight, the bright and clear, but the cold—which, unlike the sun, opens no flowers, and ripens no fruit.

Verb

1. To pledge to marry somebody.

   Usage

   • Obsolete

Noun

1. a mutual promise to marry

   Synonyms

   betrothalengagement

   Broader terms

   promise

2. a solemn pledge of fidelity

   Synonyms

   plight

   Broader terms

   assurancepledge