Confusion between loath (“unwilling or reluctant”) and loathe (“to hate”) is a growing trend.

What do the following sentences have in common?

But Saudi Arabia isn’t the only Muslim country that seems to loath Iran.

Broadcasters are loathe to relinquish control of lucrative cable package services to third party providers.

I’m loathe to put up another Netbook, so let’s try this.

Deep Down inside Bud Grant loaths the state of affairs in Minny.

All of them use either loath or loathe incorrectly and all are from trusted publications. The error is a growing trend. Garner’s Modern American Usage puts this error at stage 3: “commonplace even among many well-educated people but is still avoided in careful usage.”

Loath means to be unwilling or reluctant about something:

For-profit education institutions have been loath to put out that kind of information.

Coalition upper house leader David Davis was loath to speculate on the final outcome in the 40-seat Legislative Council.

Loathe, on the other hand, means to strongly dislike someone or something or find it disgusting:

Love it or loathe it, there’s no denying that the holiday season is upon us.

And if voters in general dislike Obamacare, Republican voters positively loathe it.

When it comes to loath and loathe, choose your words with care and avoid a common error.