Loath or loathe?
loath is an adjective meaning “Averse, disinclined; reluctant, unwilling. Always followed by a verbal phrase”; loathe is a verb meaning “To detest, hate, or revile (someone or something)”. Use loath as an adjective and loathe as a verb. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) loathe is about 2.8 times as common as loath.
What is the difference between loath and loathe?
| loath | loathe | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective | verb |
| Meaning | Averse, disinclined; reluctant, unwilling. Always followed by a verbal phrase | To detest, hate, or revile (someone or something) |
| Example | I was loath to return to the office without the Henderson file | I loathe scrubbing toilets |
| Forms | loather, loathest | loathes, loathing, loathed |
| Pronunciation | /ləʊθ/ /loʊθ/ | /ˈləʊð/ /ˈloʊð/ |
| In writing | about once in every 2 million words | 1.3 times per million words |
Sources: loath and loathe in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of loath and loathe
loath
- 1
Averse, disinclined; reluctant, unwilling. Always followed by a verbal phrase
I was loath to return to the office without the Henderson file
loathe
- 1
To detest, hate, or revile (someone or something)
I loathe scrubbing toilets
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, loath or loathe?
loath appears about once in every 2 million words; loathe 1.3 times per million words.
loath about once in every 2 million wordsloathe 1.3 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search loath vs loathe?
“loath vs loathe” is searched about 5,400 times a month on Google and 300 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“loathe vs loath”, “loath or loathe”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.