From Middle English sith (“journey, movement, lifetime, period, occasion”), from Old English sīþ (“journey, movement, trip, point in time, occasion”), from Proto-West Germanic *sinþ, from Proto-Germanic *sinþaz, from Proto-Indo-European *sent- (“to go, head”). Cognate with Faroese sinn (“time”), Gothic 𐍃𐌹𐌽𐌸𐍃 (sinþs, “path, movement”), Icelandic sinn (“time”). See also send.
Meanings
(obsolete) A journey, way.
The holy gost before vs glad / ffull softly on his sithe 15th c., “Thomas Indie [Thomas of India]”, in Wakefield Mystery Plays; Re-edited in George England, Alfred W. Pollard, editors, The Towneley Plays (Early English Text Society Extra Series; LXXI), London: […] Oxford University Press, 1897, →OCLC, page 340, line 85:
(obsolete) One's journey of life, experience, one's lot, also by extension life, lifetime.
Christ's sith of sorrow and suffering.
(obsolete) An instant in time, a point in time or an occasion.
The foolish man thereat woxe wondrous blith, / As if the word so spoken, were halfe donne, / And humbly thanked him a thousand sith, / That had from death to life him newly wonne. 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, book 3, canto X, stanza 33:
Of them the other philosophers have, by siths, taken their beginning. a. 1450, Secretum Secretorum in Ashmole:
His land mortgag'd, he, sea-beat in the way, / Wishes for home a thousand siths a day. 1598, Joseph Hall, Quid placet ergo?, line 79:
Welcome deere Roſencraus, and Guyldensterne, / Moreouer, that we much did long to ſee you, / The need we haue to vſe you did prouoke / Our haſtie ſending, ſomething haue you heard / Of Hamlets transformation, ſo call it, / Sith nor th'exterior, nor the inward man / Reſembles that it was, what it ſhould be, / More then his fathers death, that thus hath put him / So much from th'vnderſtanding of himſelfe / I cannot dreame of: […] c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: […] I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii], signature E2, verso:
Therefoꝛe, as I liue, ſaith the Loꝛd GOD, I will pꝛepare thee vnto blood, and blood ſhall purſue thee: ſith thou haſt not hated blood, euen blood ſhall purſue thee. 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Ezekiel 35:6, signature Bbbb3, verso, columns 1–2:
Therefore we need not fear them, sith Christ is with us; […] 1552, Hugh Latimer, “The Third Sermon, Preached on the Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity, 1552, by Master Hugh Latimer.”, in The Sermons of the Right Reverend Father in God, and Constant Martyr of Jesus Christ, Hugh Latimer, Some Time Bishop of Worcester, […], volume II, London: […] James Duncan, […], published 1824, →OCLC, page 161:
I had almost askt---qui gurges, aut quis tartarus hoc ſcelus--eſt auſus attrectare? ſith in ſo many thouſãds of years from the fal of the reprobate and faithleſſe angels it neuer came into the head of anie deuil to ſuggeſt to the hart of any mã before this time ſo nefarious, flagitius, portentuous a wickedneſſe, as this was? 1607 November 5, John Kinge, A Sermon Preached in Oxford: […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Ioseph Barnes, page 23: