In Denmark, and through all the North, they provoked a man to fight a duel, by publicly calling him Niding or "infamous†:" for he who had received ſo deep a ſtain, without endeavouring to waſh it out with the blood of his adverſary, would have loſt much more than the life he was ſo deſirous to ſave. [Footnote †: … King William Rufus having occaſion to draw together a ſudden body of forces, only ſent word to all ſuch as held of him in fee, that thoſe who did not repair to his aſſiſtance, ſhould be deemed Nithing; and without further ſummons they all flocked to his ſtandard.]

Odo [of Bayeux] occupied the castle of Rochester, and against it William [II] led a body of English, collected by a threat that all who had remained behind should be proclaimed "nithing," or worthless.

If a man breaks into another man's house to attack him and kill him, that shall be called a nithing crime. It is a nithing crime if a man slays one to whom he has given pledges of safety. … And in every case when a man is [found] guilty of a nithing crime he shall depart as an outlaw who has forfeited his personal rights and his property to the last penny, land as well as movables.

To call a Dane a nithing, was like ſetting fire to gunpowder, and inſtantly excited ſuch a flame of rage, as nothing but his own blood or the blood of the offender could extinguiſh ….

To get gold to buy peace, they will sell their children into slavery. Sooner than look our swords in the face, they will yield us their daughters to be our thralls! Oath-breakers, nithings! Will you be beaten by such? Vikings, Odinmen, forward!

For this siege the king again appealed to the country and called for the help of all under the old Saxon penalty of the disgraceful name of "nithing."

Do victims of the Holocaust and anti-Judaism care about how logical and unmalicious Jacoby's motives are? Do you think Jeff Jacoby is a Nazi nithing or a Holocaust denier?

Surely there must be one among this crowd of nithings who has the guts to face a woman in combat?

And for the moment, though he Sweyn II of Denmark] escaped as usual to Baldwin [V, Count of Flanders]'s land and dwelt at Bruges, he was solemnly proclaimed a nithing or vile person (the most ignominious term in the Teutonic vocabulary) by the whole host, with the king, his brother-in-law, at their head.

Nithing

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Noun

Adj

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