quoth
/kwəʊθ
/verb [with direct speech] archaic or humorous
Said (used only in first and third person singular before the subject): ‘Ah,’ quoth he, as soon as the bike started, ‘a blown cylinder head gasket.’...
- Any port in a storm, quoth the sailors, even if it's a Port-O-Potty.
- Merriam-Webster online doth quoth: ‘A geek used to be a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake.’
- As a result, it saddens me to have to resort to this, but ‘desperate times require desperate measures for measure’, quoth The Bard, or someone else a bit like him who's equally famous.
Origin
Middle English: past tense of obsolete quethe 'say, declare', of Germanic origin.
bequeath from Old English:
The Old English form becwethan is composed of be- ‘about’ and cwethan ‘say’; the related bequest is Middle English, both reflecting a time when wills were often spoken rather than written. Quoth, an old term for ‘he/she said’ also comes from cwethan.