swear
Verbswears, swearing, swore, sworn
Noun pluralswears
Formsswears, swearing, swore, sworn
Pluralswears
- 1To express oneself by using rude words, profanity, or obscenities.
Some comedians swear constantly on stage as part of their act.
She swore under her breath when the printer jammed again.
Similarcurse
- 2To take an oath, or to promise something solemnly, intensely, or with legally binding effect.
Doctors swear to do no harm when they enter the profession.
The knight swore loyalty to his king before the assembled court.
Note
The core of the verb, and the one that sets its forms: swore in the past, sworn as the past participle. Sware survives as an archaic past, and swore as a participle (I have swore) is nonstandard. The word runs back through Old English swerian, 'to take an oath of office', to an Indo-European root that already meant 'to swear'. It works with or without an object: swear loyalty, swear to return, or simply swear.
- 3To promise emphatically that something is true; to assert strongly.
I swear the keys were on the table an hour ago.
My grandmother swore that cold water made the soup taste better.
Similarinsist, maintain, assert, declare
Oppositedeny
Note
Here no oath is taken; the word just adds force. In speech it often frames a sentence as I swear, either up front (I swear I don't know) or tacked on at the end (such a pest, I swear). The negative turns it into a statement about certainty. In Rinehart and Hopwood's The Bat (1926), even the fence 'couldn't swear he knew his face.' Compare the sworn-statement meaning, where the oath is real.
- 4
- 5A profane or offensive word; an expletive.
The jar on the counter collects a quarter for every swear uttered in the kitchen.
His apology was buried under a string of swears.
Similarprofanity, obscenity, curse, expletive, cuss
Note
A noun with two possible parents: it may be made from the verb, or it may descend from Old English swaru through Middle English sware. Writers treat it as something that slips out. Conrad's Lord Jim (1900) has a man 'let out a swear or two', and Stevenson's The Beach of Falesá (1892) has a girl 'come out with a big swear'. Let out and come out with are its natural verbs.
- 6To formally put someone under oath, as when a witness is about to testify.
Court officers swear each witness before testimony begins.
A magistrate swore the interpreter before the hearing continued.
Note
The causative turn: the person, not the promise, becomes the object. An official swears the witness, and the witness is sworn. The passive Let the witness be sworn is the classic courtroom formula. Keep it apart from the oath-taking meaning: in she swore, she makes the promise; in she swore him, she has him make it.
- 7Heavy; difficult to lift or bear because of weight.
The cart proved too swear for one horse on the steep lane.
He shouldered the swear load of peat and started for home.
Similarheavy, weighty, massive
Oppositelight
Note
A different word that happens to share the spelling. Northern English and Scots swear comes from Old English swǣr, 'heavy, grievous, sluggish', not from the oath verb. In older writing it often appears as sweer or sweir. Physical weight is the starting point. The same Old English word also meant slow, slothful and weak, which is where the dialect senses of laziness, reluctance and stinginess come from.
- 8Reluctant or unwilling to do something.
The farmer was swear to sell the field his father had cleared.
Folk in the village were swear to speak with strangers.
Similarunwilling, reluctant, disinclined, loath
Note
Reluctance usually takes the frame sweer to plus a verb, often softened. James Hogg's The Three Perils of Man (1822) has a father who 'will maybe be a wee sweer to take ye in.' John Stagg, in Miscellaneous Poems (Workington, 1805), puts it at the end of the line: 'to glump ye I'd be sweer.' Loath and disinclined are the nearest standard equivalents, and they take the same to-construction.
- 9Dull, lazy, or slow in movement or effort.
A swear horse is no use at plowing time.
The whole crew grew swear in the afternoon heat.
Similarlazy, idle, sluggish, slothful, indolent
Oppositeenergetic, brisk, industrious
Note
Laziness felt as weight on the limbs, true to the Old English sense 'slow, sluggish, slothful'. In Walter Gregor's Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-east of Scotland (1881), a rhyme urges 'Rise up gueedewife, an dinna be sweer.' It uses the Scots spelling sweer and the negative imperative the word often wears. Outside dialect writing, idle or work-shy does the same job.
- 10
Less common meanings
- 11A lazy spell; a short rest taken during working hours, especially in field labor; a siesta.
Harvest crews earned their midday swear after six hours in the sun.
The foreman allowed a swear when the heat grew unbearable.
Similarnap
Note
A field worker's word for the break in the day's labor. It comes from the same Old English swǣr that gives the dialect adjective for 'dull, lazy, slow'. Its synonym undermeal points to a break taken around a meal. Siesta is the nearest familiar equivalent, though swear keeps a hint of idleness: it is both a rest and a lazy time.
- 12To laze about or take a brief rest during working hours.
Mowing crews swear through the hottest hour, stretched out beneath the hedgerows.
The old hand was swearing by the gate, hat over his eyes, while the carts were loaded.
Similarloaf
Note
The verb partner of the midday rest: to take that break, or simply to idle. To anyone outside the dialect, swearing here sounds like cursing. A sentence like he was swearing by the gate needs surroundings that make the idleness plain, such as a hat tipped over the eyes or a body stretched beneath a hedge.
- 13Stingy; miserly; grudging in spending or giving.
The landlord was so swear that he grudged even a candle for the stair.
A swear master pays late and feeds his men worse.
Similarstingy, miserly, cheap, mean, tight
Note
Unwillingness narrowed to money: the miser is reluctant to part with it, an extension of the 'unwilling' sense. Robert Smith's Poems of Controversy Betwixt Episcopacy and Presbytery (1714) plays on this when he fears his pen will turn 'as Sweir's their Purse.' A pen that holds back as tightly as their purse will write no more verse. Miserly or penurious will translate it.
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Practice
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Origins
From Middle English sweren, from Old English swerian ("to swear, take an oath"), going back through Proto-Germanic *swarjaną to a Proto-Indo-European root *swer- ("to swear"). It is related to Dutch zweren, German schwören, and Swedish svära. The original sense across the Germanic languages was "to take an oath"; the sense "to use bad language" developed in Middle English, based on the Christian prohibition against swearing and against invoking God's name.
From the verb swear, or from Middle English sware, from Old English swaru, from Proto-Germanic *swarō.
From Middle English swere, from Old English swǣr ("heavy, oppressive, grievous, slow, sluggish, weak"), from Proto-Germanic *swēraz ("heavy") and the Proto-Indo-European root *swer- ("heavy"). It is related to Dutch zwaar, German schwer, Swedish svår, and Latin sērius ("earnest, grave, serious").