hote

From Middle English hoten, hoaten, haten, from Old English hātan (“to command, be called”), from Proto-Germanic *haitaną (“command, name”), from Proto-Indo-European *keyd-, from *key- (“put in motion, be moving”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian heete (“to be named”), Dutch heten (“to be named”), German Low German heten (“to be called, be named”), German heißen (“to be called”), Swedish heta (“to be called”). Related to hight, hest.

• Rhymes: -əʊt

hote (third-person singular simple present hotes, present participle hoting, simple past hight, past participle hoten)

1. (transitive, dialectal or obsolete) To command; to enjoin.

   The captain hight five sailors stay on the other side of the fleet and ward the last.

   Beowulf hight his men build a great mead-hall, the kind of which man's progeny should hear tell forever.

2. (obsolete) To promise.
3. (obsolete, intransitive) To be called, be named.
4. (obsolete, transitive) To call, name.

The sentences given above as usage examples may be rendered in standard English in the following manner:

• The captain hight five sailors stay on the other side of the fleet and ward the last. = The captain said to five sailors: Stay on the other side of the inlet and guard the cargo.
• Beowulf hight his men build a great mead-hall, the kind of which man's progeny should hear tell forever. = Beowulf said to his men: Build a great mead-hall, the kind of which man's progeny should hear tell forever.

The verb hote survives only as part of the oral tradition in rural Scotland and Northern England. It is no longer used in common speech.

• behote

• EtOH, Theo, Theo., etho-, theo-

hote

1. Alternative form of ote