nithing

noun

1. (archaic)A coward, a dastard; a wretch.

   “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?”

2. (archaic)A wicked person; also, one who has acted immorally or unlawfully.

   “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.”

adj

1. (archaic)Cowardly, dastardly.

   “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.”

2. (archaic)Notoriously evil or wicked; infamous.

   “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.”