Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A country lad, especially a young shepherd.
- n. A beau.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A young man or boy in service; a servant.
- n. A young man in attendance on a knight; a squire.
- n. A man dwelling in the country; a countryman employed in husbandry; a rustic.
- n. Hence A country gallant; a lover or sweetheart generally.
Wiktionary
- n. obsolete A knight's servant; an attendant.
- n. archaic A country labourer; a countryman, a rustic.
- n. poetic A rural lover; a male sweetheart in a pastoral setting.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. obsolete A servant.
- n. A young man dwelling in the country; a rustic; esp., a cuntry gallant or lover; -- chiefly in poetry.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a man who is the lover of a girl or young woman
Etymologies
- From Old Norse sveinn, from Proto-Germanic *swaina-, *swainaz (“relative, young man, servant”), from Proto-Indo-European *se- (“aside, separated, apart”). Cognate with Old English swān. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, young man, servant, from Old Norse sveinn; see s(w)e- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I protest,' cried Sir Sedley to Camilla, tis your favourite swain from the Northwick assembly! wafted on some zephyr of Hope, he has pursued you to Tunbridge.”
“You lump the gold and make it current coin; -- says the blushing bride, who ought not to have delivered herself so boldly, but she had forgotten her bashful part and spoilt the scene, though, luckily for the damsel, her swain was a lover of nature, and finding her at full charge, named the very next day of the year, and held her to it, like the complimentary tyrant he was.”
“She was in a bitter state of trepidation, or she would have thought twice before she touched a nerve of the enamoured lady, as she knew she did in calling her swain a poor brute, and did again by pertinaciously pursuing:”
“Watteau-like figures, -- tall damsels in slim waists and with spread enough of skirt for a modern ballroom, with bowing, reclining, or musical swains of what everybody calls the "conventional" sort, -- that is, the swain adapted to genteel society rather than to a literal sheep-compelling existence.”
“I do have to say that I loved the photo of the young lady with her 'swain' in his kilt..very very classy.”
A Linktastic Friday to End All Linktastic Fridays - A Dress A Day
“There was no more chanting from the wells: only shuffle and creak, the cox'swain's count, the thresh of the wheels overside.”
“Why, look'ye, when I've seen so many pretty fellows knocked off the ship's roll altogether, don't you think I ought to be thankful if I can answer the bo'swain's call anyhow?”
“You want your kingdom in Virginia; and if you listen to my opinion, the little misfortune which has happened to your swain is a piece of great good-fortune to you.””
“Your "swain" is a criminal and is blackmailing you?”
“Behn fast-forwards in the second stanza to "Blooming May", and enjoys elaborating on the spring-time celebrations from which the unhappy "swain" must be excluded.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘swain’.
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Used
halcyon, ineluctable, inspissated, incarnadine, askance, demur, saltation, requisite, effusive, specious, liminality, indomitable and 114 more...
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January 2012
bloviate, pastiche, apparat, facile, paroxysm, pique, bedfellow, pedigree, tutelage, protege, protégé, retroactive and 196 more...
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Enter the Rustics
A fanfare for the Common Man. Words for rustics, yokels, and woolhats of all sorts.
woolhat, yokel, rustic, hucklebuck, hick, redneck, bogan, goober, hayseed, bumpkin, countryman, peasant and 70 more...
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Let Me Call You Sweetheart
Or honey, or baby, or ...
(A Valentine's Day list.)amoret, bonnilasse, ladybird, leikin, leman, love-lass, Phyllis, pout, sweetness, munchkin, darling, sayang and 87 more...
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Good Words
fenestering, cetic, immanent, quickening, archetypal, shibboleth, soma, wetware, heritable, Apotheosis, halcyon, cellar door and 482 more...
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Zamboni Palin
My imaginary lexicon for future megastar and visionary Zamboni Palin.
strewth, curple, speshly, ugly tree, whupping, nar'n, swain, sneezeweed, sciencey, snarleyyow, jackpudding, squanch and 304 more...
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Quaintnesses
For those who wish no words were ever forgotten
opprobrium, tedium, encomium, odium, ire, enmity, beguile, wile, brazen, popinjay, squit, hoity-toity and 1161 more...
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theastic's Words
cellar, stalemate, wrought, opal, tyrant, squelch, squab, linen, tartan, paisley, scope, siren and 395 more...
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word list!!!!
lagniappe
syzygy, bloviate, lagniappe, laconic, condign, umbrage, susurrus, thaumaturgy, capacious, capitulate, glower, repast and 179 more...
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Actual and Spectulative Sburb Classes
A list of all known Heroic Classes available to players of the game Sburb within the Homestuck universe, as well as any other words I can think of which would theoretically adhere to the known guid...
heir, seer, knight, witch, maid, page, thief, mage, rogue, sylph, prince, bard and 116 more...
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miltonic
liberty, froth-becurlèd, host, huge-bellied, aghast, rills, gladsom, wrathfull, ordain, thunder-clasping, ruddy, warble and 264 more...
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Favorite Five-Letter Words
Just what it sounds like. My favorites. Five letters.
ennui, barfy, samba, schwa, beefy, chunk, queef, spasm, skulk, bowel, elbow, fruit and 235 more...
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msc's Words
pugilist, threepeat, bloviate, palaver, syncreism, pastiche, eschatology, peripatetic, glossolalia, busker, nudnik, troglodyte and 213 more...
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roseandivy's list
mooncalf, wonted, gibbet, artless, noontide, blithe, glitterati, vorpal, soporific, moxie, pilfer, betwixt and between and 263 more...
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Lolita
Words compiled while reading Lolita
lolita, solecism, cognomen, etiolate, tendresse, expiatory, filch, paroxysm, arabesques, sibilant, manque, uranist and 181 more...
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fbharjo's Words
jumelle, kef, kenspeckle, lautitious, essentic, pilpulistic, impavid, cicurant, clou, chrysostomic, miasma, teleology and 1625 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for swain.
rebeca “Who is Celia? What is she? That all her swains commend her?” -- Otto Waltz. From Deadeye Dick by Kurt Vonnegut.
If you ever want to scare people the way Otto Waltz did, this word should be in your vocabulary. Dec 9, 2012
milosrdenstvi "A jovial swain should not complain of any buxom fair / Who mocks his pain and thinks it gain to quiz his awkward air."
An ingenious couplet notable for containing all letters of the English alphabet save one. Mar 17, 2009