Rath or wrath?
rath is a noun meaning “A walled enclosure, especially in Ireland; a ringfort built sometime between…”; wrath is a noun meaning “Great anger; (countable) an instance of this”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) wrath is about 9.3 times as common as rath.
What is the difference between rath and wrath?
| rath | wrath | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, adjective | noun, verb, adjective |
| Meaning | A walled enclosure, especially in Ireland; a ringfort built sometime between the Iron Age and the Viking Age A Burmese carriage of state | Great anger; (countable) an instance of this Punishment, retribution, or vengeance resulting from anger; (countable) an instance of this |
| Example | none recorded | Homer relates an episode in the Trojan War that reveals the tragic consequences of the wrath of Achilles |
| Forms | raths | wraths |
| Pronunciation | /ɹɑːθ/ /ɹæθ/ | /ɹɒθ/ /ɹɔːθ/ /ɹɑːθ/ |
| In writing | about once in every 2 million words | 5.0 times per million words |
Sources: rath and wrath 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 rath and wrath
rath
- 1
A walled enclosure, especially in Ireland; a ringfort built sometime between the Iron Age and the Viking Age
- 2
A Burmese carriage of state
- 3
Alternative form of rathe
wrath
- 1
Great anger; (countable) an instance of this
Homer relates an episode in the Trojan War that reveals the tragic consequences of the wrath of Achilles
- 2
Punishment, retribution, or vengeance resulting from anger; (countable) an instance of this
the wrath of God
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, rath or wrath?
rath appears about once in every 2 million words; wrath 5.0 times per million words.
rath about once in every 2 million wordswrath 5.0 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 rath vs wrath?
“rath vs wrath” is searched about 20 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“wrath vs rath”, “rath or wrath”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.