sward

See also: Sward

English

WOTD – 24 September 2021

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /swɔːd/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /swɔɹd/
• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)d

Etymology 1

United States Navy soldiers laying down pieces of sward (sense 1) or sod for a Habitat for Humanity project to build homes in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

The noun is derived from Middle English sward (“rind; skin; calloused skin; leather strap; sod, turf”) [and other forms], from Old English sweard, swearð (“rind; skin”), from Proto-Germanic *swarduz (“rind; tough skin; turf”); further etymology unknown.

The verb is derived from the noun.

Noun

sward (countable and uncountable, plural swards)

1. (uncountable) Earth which grass has grown into the upper layer of; greensward, sod, turf; (countable) a portion of such earth.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book X”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], OCLC 228722708; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554, lines 429–433:

     His eyes he op'nd, and beheld a field, / Part arable and tilth, whereon were Sheaves / New reapt, the other part ſheep-walks and foulds; / Ith' midſt an Altar as the Land-mark ſtood / Ruſtic, of graſſie ſord; […]

   • 1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “Œnone”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], OCLC 3944791, stanza I, page 51:

     There is a dale in Ida, lovelier / Than any in old Ionia, beautiful / With emerald slopes of sunny sward, that lean / Above the loud glenriver, which hath worn / A path thro' steepdown granite walls below / Mantled with flowering tendriltwine.

   • 1837, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter XIII, in Ernest Maltravers […] , volume I, London: Saunders and Otley, […], OCLC 1181337800, book I, pages 125–126:

     The road wound through the greenest sward, in which trees of venerable growth were relieved by a profusion of shrubs, and flowers gathered into baskets intertwined with creepers, or blooming from Etruscan vases, placed with a tasteful and classic care, in such spots as required filling up, and harmonised well with the object chosen.

   • 1843, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], “Earl Warwick, the King-maker”, in The Last of the Barons, volume I, London: Saunders and Otley, […], OCLC 2483878, book II (The King’s Court), page 172:

     [F]or garden it was called, though consisting but of plots of sward, bordered by fruit trees, and white rose trees not yet in blossom, […]

   • 1847, Alfred Tennyson, The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], OCLC 2024748, prologue, page 5:

     And long we gazed, but satiated at length / Came to the ruins. High-arch'd and ivy-claspt, / Of finest Gothic, lighter than a fire, / Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they gave / The park, the crowd, the house; but all within / The sward was trim as any garden lawn: […]

2. (countable) An expanse of land covered in grass; a lawn or meadow.

   Synonym: field

   • 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], “The First Gun”, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], OCLC 752825175, pages 9–10:

     It was not far from the house; but the ground sank into a depression there, and the ridge of it behind shut out everything except just the roof of the tallest hayrick. As one sat on the sward behind the elm, with the back turned on the rick and nothing in front but the tall elms and the oaks in the other hedge, it was quite easy to fancy it the verge of the prairie with the backwoods close by.

   • 1891, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “How Strange Things Befell in Minstead Wood”, in The White Company, New York, N.Y.; Boston, Mass.: Thomas Y[oung] Crowell & Company […], OCLC 224313202, page 105:

     [O]f a sudden the trees began to thin and the sward to spread out onto a broad, green lawn, where five cows lay in the sunshine and droves of black swine wandered unchecked.

   • 1918, Booth Tarkington, chapter XIII, in The Magnificent Ambersons, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, OCLC 676709569, page 197:

     Only where George stood was there left a sward as of yore; the great, level, green lawn that served for both the Major's house and his daughter's.

3. (countable, obsolete) The upper layer of the ground, especially when vegetation is growing on it.
   • 1601, G[aius] Plinius Secundus [i.e., Pliny the Elder], “[Book XVI.] Of the Boughs, Barke, and Roots of Trees.”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Historie of the VVorld. Commonly Called, The Natvrall Historie of C. Plinivs Secvndus. […], 1st tome, London: […] Adam Islip, published 1635, OCLC 1180792622, page 477:

     The roots of the Apple-tree, Olive, and Cypreſſe, lie very ebbe, and creepe hard under the ſourd of the ground.

4. (countable, obsolete except Britain, dialectal) The rind of bacon or pork; also, the outer covering or skin of something.
   • [c. 1440, Galfrido Grammatico [i.e., Geoffrey the Grammarian], “Swarde”, in Albert Way, editor, Promptorium parvulorum sive clericorum, dictionarius Anglo–Latinus princeps, […] [Storehouse for Children or Clerics, the First English–Latin Dictionary, […]] (Camden Society; LXXXIX) (in Middle English), London: […] Societatis Camdenensis [Camden Society], published 1865, OCLC 8287227, page 482, column 1:

     Swarde or sworde of flesche (swad or swarde, s.) Coriana.

     (please add an English translation of this quote)]

Alternative forms

• swarth, swart, swerd

Derived terms

• greensward
• swardy (archaic)

Translations

earth into the upper layer of which grass has grown; portion of such earth — See also translations at sod,‎ turf

• French: gazon (fr) m
• Italian: erba (it) f, zolla (it) f
• Romanian: gazon (ro) n, iarbă (ro), pajiște (ro)

• Russian: дёрн (ru) m (djorn)
• Westrobothnian: sjwal m

expanse of land covered in grass

• French: pelouse (fr) f
• Irish: báinseach f
• Italian: prato (it) m

• Romanian: iarbă (ro) f
• Russian: газо́н (ru) m (gazón), луг (ru) m (lug)

rind of bacon or pork — see bacon rind,‎ pork rind

outer covering or skin of something

Verb

sward (third-person singular simple present swards, present participle swarding, simple past and past participle swarded)

1. (transitive) To cover (ground, etc.) with sward.
2. (intransitive) Of ground, etc.: to be covered with sward; to develop a covering of sward.
   • 1644, Gabriel Plattes, in a letter in Hartlib's Legacy (1655), page 236:

     [Land...] will not sward again […]

   • 1765, Thomas Hamilton Haddington, A Short Treatise on Forest-trees, page 45:

     […] for the ground immediately after corn is many years before it swards, and […]

   • 1891, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Professional Notes, volume 5, page 256:

     ... with soil of a similar character, several fields have been laid down and ploughed up again under the old plea that they will not sward.

Derived terms

• swarded (adjective)

Translations

to cover (ground, etc.) with sward

of ground, etc.: to be covered with sward; to develop a covering of sward

Etymology 2

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

sward (plural swards)

1. (Philippines) A homosexual man.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:male homosexual

Derived terms

• swardspeak

Further reading

• James Orchard Halliwell (1847), “SWARD”, in A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs, and Ancient Customs, from the Fourteenth Century. [...] In Two Volumes, volume II (J–Z), London: John Russell Smith, […], OCLC 1008510154, page 833, column 2.
• Joseph Wright, editor (1905), “SWARD, sb.¹”, in The English Dialect Dictionary: […], volume V (R–S), London: Henry Frowde, […], publisher to the English Dialect Society, […]; New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, OCLC 81937840, pages 866–867.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021), “sward”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Anagrams

• -wards, draws, wards

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Middle English

Alternative forms

• swerd, swerde, swarde, swarthe, swarth, suarth

Etymology

From Old English sweard, from Proto-Germanic *swarduz; compare Old Norse svǫrðr.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsward/, /ˈswarθ/, /ˈswɛrd/

Noun

sward

1. Sward; a location where grass exists.
2. (Late Middle English) Skin, especially that on meat.

Descendants

• English: sward
• Scots: swaird

References

• “sward, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-06-23.