I use the word ruthless quite a bit and the other day I was wondering whether there was such a word as ruth, so that one could be absent of it. In one of those marvellously serendipitous coincidences a couple of days later my dictionary.com Word of the Day was ‘ruth’.

It means compassion or pity; sorrow or grief; or contrition, remorse. It’s a lovely word that deserves more use.