swan

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Thus, a drawing of a bear or a swan was the hieroglyphic of the name of a star, or group of stars.

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Definitions (21)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (4)

  1. noun Any of various large aquatic birds of the family Anatidae chiefly of the genera Cygnus and Olor, having webbed feet, a long slender neck, and usually white plumage.
  2. noun See Cygnus.
  3. intransitive verb Chiefly British To travel around from place to place: "Swanning around Europe nowadays, are we?” (Jeffrey Archer).

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Examples (50)

  • The royal swans, that is those belonging to the Crown, are marked in a particular manner on the bill, and every year, on the first Monday in August, men, now called swan-hoppers (a corruption of the old term swan-uppers, because they went up the river after the swans), proceed up the Thames to mark the young swans hatched during the year. —  Mamma's Stories about Birds
  • Such rτles were Prometheus, Dζdalus, Orpheus, Hercules, and Attys; Pasiphae and the bull, and Leda and the swan were also enacted. —  Folkways A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals
  • At other times he gets near enough in the disguise of a deer or other quadruped--for the swan, like most wild birds, is less afraid of the lower animals than of man During the spring migration, when the swan is moving northward, the hunter, hidden under some rock, bank, or tree, frequently lures him from his high flight by the imitation of his well-known "hoop." —  The Hunters' Feast Conversations Around the Camp Fire
  • It was a swan, and one of the very largest kind--a "trumpeter" (_Cygnus buccinator It had been feeding in a sedge of the wild rice (_Zizania aquatica_), and no doubt the sight of the canoe or the plash of the guiding oar had disturbed, and given it the alarm. —  The Young Voyageurs Boy Hunters in the North
  • First the swan, and after him the canoe, swung round the bend, and entered the new "reach" of the river. —  The Young Voyageurs Boy Hunters in the North
 

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Etymologies (4)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Middle English, from Old English; see swen- in Indo-European roots.
  2. Probably alteration of dialectal (I) s' warrant, (I) shall warrant.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. from Middle English swan, swon, from Anglo-Saxon swan = Middle Dutch swaen, Dutch zwaan = Middle Low German swan, swane = Old High German swan, masculine, swana, feminine, Middle High German swan, swane, German schwan = Icelandic svanr = Swedish svan = Danish svane = Gothic (Moesogothic) *swans (not recorded), a swan; perhaps allied to Sanskritsvan, Latin sonare, sound: see sound. Cf. Anglo-Saxon hana = German hahn, etc., a cock, as related to L. canere, sing: see hen.
  2. A euphemistic variation of swear; cf. swow, a similar evasion.
 

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/swɑn/
by American Heritage

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