Bosworth–Toller’s Pastoral Care examples make conduct grammatical: rulers hate their subjects’ vices, and the text distinguishes loving what enemies are from hating what they do. The historical verb therefore records directed moral and hostile judgment, not only an inward emotion label.

The located weak-verb corpus inventory gives hettan only one form: hettende. Bosworth–Toller records that surface family repeatedly under hettend, “enemy” or “antagonist,” including Genesis and the Phoenix. The verb is therefore not a neat recovered paradigm; it is a lemma inferred at the edge between action, agent, and lexicalized foe.

Bosworth–Toller lists leód-, morþor-, wǽpen-, and wíg-hete among eleven derived formations. Clark Hall adds hostile speech, a hostile blow, a hostile design, and a charm for producing hate. The noun was a word-building base, not merely a private feeling label.