† marahn.
Obsolete.
Bitterness, gall; a source of bitterness.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > emotion > suffering > mental anguish or torment > bitterness of heart > [noun]
sour gremec1400
atterc1430
festera1500
maraha1500
coloquintida1622
ranklea1632
bitterness-
OE Old Eng. Hexateuch: Exod. (Claud.) xv. 23 Hi comon to ðære stowe, þe is Mara genemned þæt is on ure leden biternys; ða ne mihton hi drincan ðæt wæter, for þam ðe hit wæs biter.
a1382 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Bodl. 959) (1959) Exod. xv. 23 Þei miȝte not drynk þe waters of Marath forþi þat þei wern bitter; wherfor and a couenable name he putte to þe place, clepyng it Mara, þat is bitternes.
a1382 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Bodl. 959) Ruth i. 20 Ne clepe ȝee me Noemy, þat is to sei, fair, but clepeþ me Mara, þat is, bittyr.]
a1500 ( Poems from Pilgrimage of Soul (Egerton) in F. J. Furnivall Wks. T. Hoccleve: Regement Princes (1897) p. xlii Wel may men calle me ‘marra’..Sith Ihesus is fro me falle..and my swetnesse in-to galle Turned.
1667 N. Billingsley Treasury Divine Raptures 157 Good Conscience can suck content divine, From bitt'rest drugs, turn Marah into Wine.
1678 Young Man's Calling 13 The young man by mistake fondly calls it Naomi, and says it is pleasant. The elder by dear-bought experience finds it Marah, and cries out ‘Oh! it is bitter!’
1831 T. B. Macaulay Moore's Life Byron in Ess. (1887) 168 Never had any writer so vast a command of the whole eloquence of scorn, misanthropy, and despair. That Marah was never dry.
1852 H. W. Longfellow Jewish Cemetery 40 The wasting famine of the heart they fed, And slaked its thirst with marah of their tears.
1885 ‘M. Field’ Father's Trag. v. i. 105 'Tis a very bitter thought That turns my tears to Marah.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2000; most recently modified version published online December 2020).
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n.a1500