Quoth is an old-fashioned way of saying “said.” You'll find it in poems and stories written long ago, where a character speaks and the writer notes “quoth he” or “quoth she” instead of using our modern “he said” or “she said.”

The most famous use comes from Edgar Allan Poe's eerie poem “The Raven,” where a mysterious black bird keeps repeating a single word. Each time, Poe writes “Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'” The old-fashioned word makes the poem feel darker and more haunting.

You'll notice that quoth usually comes before the speaker's name, unlike “said,” which often comes after. We say “she said” but would write “quoth she.” Nobody uses this word in regular conversation anymore. If you used it at the dinner table, your family would probably laugh! But when you're reading classic poetry or old tales, seeing quoth reminds you that you've stepped into a story from another time, when people spoke and wrote differently than we do today.