forswink

English

Etymology

From Middle English forswinken, equivalent to for- +‎ swink.

Verb

forswink (third-person singular simple present forswinks, present participle forswinking, simple past forswank or forswonk or forswonck, past participle forswunken or forswunk or forswonk or forswonck)

1. (transitive, archaic poetic or obsolete) To exhaust by labour; overwork.
   • 1810, original 1579, Edmund Spenser, The Shepheard's Calender:

     She is my goddess plain,
     And I her shepherd's swain,
     Albe[it] forswonk and forswat I am.

   • 1943, Ivor John Carnegie Brown, Just Another Word: Comprising A Word in Your Ear & Just Another Word, page 112:

     If indeed he had so turned from Latin texts to garden-tools, he would certainly have been forswunk.

   • 1980, Artscribe - Issues 21-26, page 116:

     Much of what Ms Sorkin performed was forswunk, and on the heavier side of angst as in Kaddish (in memory of Anna Frank) by Sokolow, which walked hand in hand with Messiaen's score into the deep blue sea where they solemnly sank, as did my spirits.

   • 1995, Frank O'Hara, Donald Merriam Allen, Donald Allen, The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara, page 121:

     And they dried him out and hung him up. My, he swung.
     Blowing his nose for the lovers; forswunken, forswot.

   • 2004, Mat Coward, Over and Under: A Don Packham and Frank Mitchell Mystery, page 116:

     At which point, Don said: "Sod this. If they don't bloody well want to be arrested for murder, then they can suit themselves. I'm buggered if I'm going to forswink myself."