swink

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search
See also: Swink

English

[edit]

Pronunciation

[edit]

Etymology 1

[edit]

From Middle English swink, from Old English swinc (toil, work, effort; hardship; the produce of labour).

Noun

[edit]

swink (countable and uncountable, plural swinks)

  1. (archaic) toil, work, drudgery
    • 1963, Anthony Burgess, Inside Mr. Enderby:
      Dead on this homecoming cue Jack came home, his hands sheerfree of salesman’s swink, ready for Enderby.

Etymology 2

[edit]

From Middle English swynken, from Old English swincan (to labour, work), from Proto-Germanic *swinkaną (to swing, bend). Cognate with Old Norse svinka (to work).[1]

Verb

[edit]

swink (third-person singular simple present swinks, present participle swinking, simple past swank or swonk or swinkt or swinked, past participle swunk or swunken or swonken or swinkt or swinked)

  1. (archaic, intransitive) To labour, to work hard
  2. (archaic, transitive) To cause to toil or drudge; to tire or exhaust with labor.
    • 1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: [] [Comus], London: [] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, [], published 1637, →OCLC; reprinted as Comus: [] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC:
      And the swinked hedger at his supper sat.
    • 1985, Rodney Dale, The Sinclair Story, page 65:
      There was no internal graphite coating; instead a metal shield was used to collect the beam current the swinked electrons which in their prime had caused the screen to fluoresce.
Derived terms
[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ swink, verb.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

Further reading

[edit]

Anagrams

[edit]