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''swain'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260125204041-00-⌔

swain - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

swain (plural swains)

  • (obsolete) A young man or boy in service; a servant.
  • (obsolete) A knight’s servant; an attendant.
  • (archaic) A country labourer; a countryman, a rustic.
    • ✤ theſe that ſeeme but ſilly country Swaines,
      May haue the leading of so great an hoſte,
      As with their waight ſhal make the mountains quake.      1
  • (poetic) A rural lover; a male sweetheart in a pastoral setting.
    • ✤ Why thus from the Plain does my Shepherdess rove
      Forsaking Her Swain and neglecting his love?      2
    • ✤ “Oh, dear Miss Dobson, will you but accept my hand, all these things shall be yours—the cards, the canister, the goldfish, the demon egg-cup—all yours!” Zuleika, with ravishing coyness, answered that if he would give her them now, she would “think it over.” The swain consented, and at bed-time she retired with the gift under her arm.3
    • ✤ You’re the belle of the ball, and these are all your swains, hoping for a glimpse of ankle.4

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 sveinn (“boy, lad, servant”), Swedish sven (“swain, servant”), Low German Sween, dialectal German Schwein, Old English swān (“swineherd, lad”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /sweɪn/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -eɪn

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act I, scene ii: ↩

  2. a. 1722, Matthew Prior, “Chanson Francoise. Translated”, in H. Bunker Wright, Monroe K. Spears, editors, The Literary Works of Matthew Prior, Second edition, volume I, Oxford: Clarendon Press, published 1971, page 687: ↩

  3. 1911, Max Beerbohm, chapter II, in Zuleika Dobson ‎: ↩

  4. 2016 Zack Woods (as Donald “Jared” Dunn), “Founder Friendly”, Silicon Valley episode 19 ↩

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