swain

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English swein, also swain and swayne,^[2][3] borrowed from Old Norse sveinn (“boy, servant, attendant”).^{[4][5][6][7][8][9]} The Old Norse word is from Proto-Germanic *swainaz,^[7][8][10] which Etymonline glosses "attendant, servant", properly "one's own (man)", and derives from Proto-Indo-European *swoi-no-, from the root *s(w)e- (“oneself, alone, apart”).^[5][6] Barnhart likewise gives *swoinos.^[7] Its cognates are Old English swān (“shepherd, swineherd”), Old Saxon swēn, Old High German swein (“herdsman”) and giswīo (“brother-in-law”), and, outside the Germanic languages, Lithuanian svainė (“sister-in-law”);^[7][3][10] Merriam-Webster also compares Latin suus (“one's own”).^[3] The Norse word replaced the native Old English one.^[11] Skeat connected the Germanic word by ablaut with swine, making "swineherd" the original sense,^[12] but Etymonline holds that it is not directly related to swine.^[5] It is also the second element of boatswain, late Old English bātswegen, and of coxswain.^[4][2][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A young man attending on a knight, and hence a man of low rank, often paired with knight: the first record is in the Peterborough Chronicle, under the annal for 1128.^[4][7] Barnhart dates it before 1160,^[7] and Etymonline to the mid-12th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word meant an attendant on a knight or a soldier below that rank, a retainer or servant, and also simply a man, young man or boy, or a commoner.^[2][4] Chaucer used it twice, for a servant or young man.^[13] These senses died out between the late 16th and the early 17th century.^[4][14] From 1579 the word was applied to a farm labourer or shepherd, a countryman;^[4][5] about 1585–1592 it came to mean a rustic lover, and then to any lover or suitor, especially in pastoral poetry.^[4][7][5] Weekley thought the word was dying out in Spenser's time and that Spenser revived it in the senses of rustic, shepherd and pastoral sweetheart.^[11] Johnson (1755) defined it as a young man, a country servant and a pastoral youth.^[15] Manwood, writing on forest law before 1610, invented a sense "freeholder within the forest" to explain swanimote.^[4] A verb swain it, to play the lover, is recorded from 1840.^[4] Today the noun is archaic or poetic, and is used humorously of an admirer.^[16][3]

Timeline

• before 1160 – a young man attending on a knight; a man of low rank, in the Peterborough Chronicle's annal for 1128 (obsolete by 1575).^[4][7]
• c. 1275 – a male servant, an attendant or follower, in Laȝamon's Brut (obsolete by 1623).^[4][2]
• c. 1386 – a man, youth or boy, in Chaucer's Sir Thopas (obsolete by 1633).^[4]
• 1579 – a farm labourer or shepherd; a rustic.^[4][5]
• c. 1592 – a country lover, and then any lover or wooer.^[4] Barnhart dates the sense to about 1585.^[7]
• before 1610 – a freeholder within a forest, in Manwood.^[4]
• 1840 – verb, swain it, to play the lover.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (archaic or poetic) A male lover, admirer or suitor: Her swain waited at the gate with a bunch of violets.^[16][3][4]
2. (archaic) A country youth or farm worker, especially a shepherd; a rustic.^[16][3][4]
3. One holding a freehold within a forest, a sense coined by Manwood.^[3][4]
4. (obsolete, Old English–1575) A young man attending on a knight; a man of low rank.^[4][2][14]
5. (obsolete, 1275–1623) A male servant or attendant.^[4][2][14]
6. (obsolete, 1386–1633) A boy, youth or man.^[4][3]

Word family

• swainish
• swainishness
• boatswain
• coxswain

Related words

• idiom
• suicide

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
14. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins