Obs. exc. dial. [OE. waroð (waruð, warað, wareð, wearoð, weroð, warð) masc., corresp. to OHG. warid, werid (MHG. wert, werd-, mod.G. werd, wert):—OTeut. *waruþo-z, *wariþo-z.] A shore, strand; in mod. use, ‘a flat meadow, esp. one close to a stream; a stretch of coast’ (Eng. Dial. Dict.).
Beowulf, 234. Ʒewat him þa to waroðe wicge ridan.
a. 1000. Boeth. Metr., viii. 30. Næniʓ cepa ne seah ofer earʓeblond ellendne wearoð [MS. wearod].
c. 1000. Ags. Ps. (Th.), cv. 9. Þær wæron þa wareðas driʓe.
13[?]. E. E. Allit. P., C. 339. Þe whal wendez at his wylle & a warþe fyndez, & þer he brakez vp þe buyrne.
13[?]. Gaw. & Gr. Knt., 715. At vche warþe oþer water þer þe wyȝe passed, He fonde a foo hym byfore.
1372. Bridgewater Corp. MSS., No. 462. Septem acras terre cum Wartha versus mare.
c. 1450. Mirk’s Festial, 7. On a day, as he walket on þe see-warth, he segh a drownet man cast vp on þe watyr.
c. 1465. Warrington in 1465 (Chetham Soc.), 10. Item tenet quandam parcellam terræ arabilis jacentem super le Warthe.
c. 1640. J. Smyth, Lives Berkeleys (1883), I. 190. The pasture called the warth in the other side of Seaverne. Ibid., 341. Hee … held in severalty divers parcells of Slimbridge Warth … and shortly after inclosed fifty four acres more of the same Warth.
1839. Sir G. C. Lewis, Gloss. Hereford., 117. Warth. On the banks of the Severn, a flat meadow close to the stream is so called; e.g. the Warth opposite Blakeney.
