swear
/ˈswɛɚ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.51 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A swear word.
adj
Example Sentences
- "The knight swore not to return to the palace until he had found the treasure."
- "The witness swore that the person she had seen running out of the bank was a foot shorter than the accused."
- "I swear I don't know what you're talking about."
- "My little brother is such a pest, I swear."
- "The Bat—they called him the Bat.[…]. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face."
- "Let the witness be sworn."
Etymology
From Middle English sweren, swerien, from Old English swerian (“to swear, take an oath of office”), from Proto-West Germanic *swarjan, from Proto-Germanic *swarjaną (“to speak, swear”), from Proto-Indo-European *swer- (“to swear”). Cognate with West Frisian swarre (“to swear”), Saterland Frisian swera (“to swear”), Dutch zweren (“to swear, vow”), Low German swören (“to swear”), sweren, German schwören (“to swear”), Danish sværge, Swedish svära (“to swear”), Icelandic sverja (“to swear”), Russian свара (svara, “quarrel”). Also cognate to Albanian var (“to hang, consider, to depend from”) through Proto-Indo-European. The original sense in all Germanic languages is “to take an oath”. The sense “to use bad language” developed in Middle English and is based on the Christian prohibition against swearing in general (cf. Matthew 5:33-37) and invoking God’s name in particular (i.e. frequent swearing was considered similar to the use of obscene words).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈswɛɚ/
- British English: /ˈswɛə(ɹ)/
Usage
Inflected Forms
swears (present, singular)
swearing (participle, present)
swore (past)
sware (archaic, past)
sworn (participle, past)
swore (nonstandard, participle)
swears (plural)
swearer (comparative)
more swear (comparative)
swearest (superlative)
most swear (superlative)
sweer (alternative)