swoon

Wikipedia

English

Alternative forms

• swound (archaic)

Etymology

From Middle English swownen, swonen (“to faint”), and Middle English aswoune (“in a swoon”), both ultimately from Old English ġeswōgen (“insensible, senseless, dead”), past participle of swōgan (“to make a sound, overrun, suffocate”) (compare Old English āswōgan (“to cover over, overcome”)), from Proto-Germanic *swōganan (“to make a noise”), from Proto-Indo-European *swāghe- (“to shout”). Cognate with Low German swogen (“to sigh, groan”), Dutch zwoegen (“to groan, breathe heavily”), Norwegian dialectal søgja (“to whistle, hum, talk loudly”). More at sough.

Pronunciation

• enPR: swo͝on, IPA: /swuːn/, X-SAMPA: /swu:n/
• Rhymes: -uːn

Noun

swoon (plural swoons)

1. A faint.
   • 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula Chapter 21

     "I felt my strength fading away, and I was in a half swoon. How long this horrible thing lasted I know not, but it seemed that a long time must have passed before he took his foul, awful, sneering mouth away. I saw it drip with the fresh blood!"

2. An infatuation

Translations

a faint

• Dutch: bezwijming (nl)
• German: Ohnmacht (de) f
• Portuguese: desmaio (pt) m
• Russian: обморок (ru) (óbmorok) m , потеря сознания (ru) (potérja soznánija) f 

• Scottish Gaelic: neul (gd) m
• Serbo-Croatian: nesvestica (sh) f
• Spanish: desmayo (es) m
• Telugu: మూర్ఛ (te) (moorcha)

infatuation — see infatuation

Verb

swoon (third-person singular simple present swoons, present participle swooning, simple past and past participle swooned)

1. (dated) to faint, to lose consciousness

   • 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Gods of Mars^[1], edition HTML, The Gutenberg Project, published 2008:

     I dropped the vessel quickly to a lower level. Nor was I a moment too soon. The girl had swooned.

2. to be overwhelmed by emotion (especially infatuation)

Derived terms

• swooningly

Synonyms

• (faint): black out, faint, lose consciousness, pass out
• (be overwhelmed by emotion):

Translations

to faint

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 昏倒 (cmn) (hūndǎo), 暈厥 (cmn), 晕厥 (cmn) (yūnjué)

• Czech: omdlít (cs)
• Dutch: flauwvallen (nl), bezwijmen (nl)
• Finnish: pyörtyä (fi)
• French: s'évanouir (fr)
• German: ohnmächtig werden (de), in Ohnmacht fallen (de)

• Italian: svenire (it)
• Portuguese: desmaiar (pt)
• Russian: падать в обморок (ru) (pádatʹ v óbmorok)  impf., упасть в обморок (ru) (upástʹ v óbmorok)  pf., терять сознание (ru) (terjátʹ soznánije)  impf., потерять сознание (ru) (poterjátʹ soznánije)  pf.
• Spanish: desmayarse, desvanescerse
• Swedish: svimma (sv)

to be overwhelmed by emotion

• Dutch: zwijmelen (nl)

• Spanish: desvanecerse (es)