In historical Germanic society, nīþ was a term for a social stigma implying the loss of honour and the status of a villain. A person affected with the stigma is a nīðing . Middle English retained a cognate nithe, meaning 'envy', 'hate', or 'malice'.

Ergi (noun) and argr (adjective) are two Old Norse terms of insult, denoting effeminacy or other unmanly behaviour. Argr is "unmanly" and ergi is "unmanliness"; the terms have cognates in other Germanic languages such as earh, earg, arag, or arug, among others.