A feeling of compassion, pity, or sorrow for someone else's misfortune. Also a feminine given name of Hebrew origin meaning 'friend' or 'companion'.
From Old Norse 'ruth' meaning sorrow or grief, related to 'rue' (to feel regret). As a name, it comes from Hebrew 'Ruth' meaning friend or companion, famous from the biblical Book of Ruth. The emotion sense is now archaic except in 'ruthless'.
The word 'ruth' meaning compassion is nearly extinct in English, surviving mainly in its negative form 'ruthless' - creating the curious situation where we commonly use a word meaning 'without ruth' but rarely use 'ruth' itself!
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