Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

manswear

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English

Syllables: man-swear
IPA

13

Scrabble Score

8

Letters

2

Syllables

7

Unique Chars

Meaning

verb

To swear falsely; perjure oneself.

British usage; Transitive verb

Example Sentences

"I require of thee, as a man of thy word, on pain of being held faithless, man-sworn, and nidering [footnote: Infamous], to forgive and to receive to thy paternal affection the good knight, Wilfrid of Ivanhoe."
"There are doomed to wade the weltering streams / Men that are mansworn, and they that murderers are."

Etymology

From Middle English mansweren, from Old English mānswerian (“to forswear, perjure oneself”), from mān (“bad, criminal, false”) + swerian (“to swear”).

Origin

Source language: Middle English

Word Breakdown

Root: mansweren, mānswerian

Usage

British usage
Transitive verb

Inflected Forms

manswears (present, singular) manswearing (participle, present) manswore (past) mansworn (participle, past) mainswear (alternative, Northern England) manswere (alternative, Scotland) maneswere (alternative, Scotland) mansweir (alternative, Scotland)

Synonyms

misswear

Questions

What does manswear mean?: To swear falsely; perjure oneself.
Where does manswear come from?: It is traced to Middle English.

How to pronounce manswear

Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “manswear”.
Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling () so you know which sounds to aim for.
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