In our Anglo-Saxon past, we had the perfect word to describe a person whom you might despise: a Nithing.
That's not just a Nothing or a Nobody, although these might seem apt too. A Nithing is an altogether different word, not a typo but one with a much darker, meaner, and nastier meaning regarding the loss of honour.
A Nithing is a villain or coward who has broken a code of honour. A wretch, coward; good-for-nothing; a stingy or miserly person. Someone who has lost all honour, a worthless beast, a creature who has sunk so low in esteem that anyone had the right to kill it on sight, for an 'it' is was, without any fear of legal reprisal or consequence, in effect an Outlaw, one to be shunned and thrown out of society.
A Nithing was a creature to be hated and cursed.
You may have heard the old name for a poet was a Skald. One of the purposes of a skald was to publicly face and shame a 'nithing'. Some Skalds were even said to have the ability to reverse a curse that had turned the subject of their 'skald' from a person of good character to a nithing. This is probably the root of the term 'giving someone a good scolding' in modern times used to describe telling someone off (often a child).
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