Kith

//kɪθ// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Friends and acquaintances. archaic, obsolete, uncountable, usually

    "Alack, would that Edward listened more to me and less to the queen’s kith! These Woodvilles!"

  2. 2
    your friends and acquaintances wordnet
  3. 3
    An acquaintance or a friend. Northern-England, Scotland, countable, usually

Synonyms

All synonyms
acquaintanceamigobabberboyfriendbudbuddy

Example

More examples

"I had neither kith nor kin in England."

Etymology

From Middle English kitthe (“kinsmen, relations”), from Old English cȳþþ, cȳþþu (“kinship, kinsfolk, relations”), from Proto-Germanic *kunþiþō (“knowledge, acquaintance”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵneh₃- (“to know”). Cognate with Old High German kundida (“kith”), kundī (“knowledge”), Gothic 𐌺𐌿𐌽𐌸𐌹 (kunþi, “knowledge”). More at couth, -th.

Related phrases

kith and kin

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.