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swain

Pronunciation: /sweɪn/

The English word “swain” has 4 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A young man or boy in service; a servant.
  2. A knight's servant; an attendant.
  3. A country labourer; a countryman, a rustic.
  4. A rural lover; a male sweetheart in a pastoral setting.

Etymology

From Middle English swayn, swain, sweyn, swein, from Old English sweġen (attested also as personal name Swein, Sweġen), from Old Norse sveinn, from Proto-Germanic *swainaz (“relative, young man, servant”), from Proto-Indo-European *swé (“oneself; separate; apart”), thus properly one's own. Cognate with Danish svend (“hireling, young man”), Norwegian svein (“lad, young man, servant”) Icelandic…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.