sward
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: The noun is derived from Middle English sward (“rind; skin; calloused skin; leather strap; sod, turf”) [and other forms], from Old English sweard, swearð (“rind; skin”), from Proto-Germanic *swarduz (“rind; tough skin; turf”); further etymology unknown.
The verb is derived from the noun.
Inflected forms:
form: swards
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: swarth
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: swart
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: swerd
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: swards
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: swarding
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: swarded
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: swarded
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: Earth which grass has grown into the upper layer of; greensward, sod, turf; (countable) a portion of such earth.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: His eyes he op'nd, and beheld a field, / Part arable and tilth, whereon were Sheaves / New reapt, the other part ſheep-walks and foulds; / Ith' midſt an Altar as the Land-mark ſtood / Ruſtic, of graſſie ſord; […]
There is a dale in Ida, lovelier / Than any in old Ionia, beautiful / With emerald slopes of sunny sward, that lean / Above the loud glenriver, which hath worn / A path thro' steepdown granite walls below / Mantled with flowering tendriltwine.
The road wound through the greenest sward, in which trees of venerable growth were relieved by a profusion of shrubs, and flowers gathered into baskets intertwined with creepers, or blooming from Etruscan vases, placed with a tasteful and classic care, in such spots as required filling up, and harmonised well with the object chosen.
[F]or garden it was called, though consisting but of plots of sward, bordered by fruit trees, and white rose trees not yet in blossom, […]
And long we gazed, but satiated at length / Came to the ruins. High-arch'd and ivy-claspt, / Of finest Gothic, lighter than a fire, / Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they gave / The park, the crowd, the house; but all within / The sward was trim as any garden lawn: […]
gloss: An expanse of land covered in grass; a lawn or meadow.
pos: noun
tags: countable
examples: It was not far from the house; but the ground sank into a depression there, and the ridge of it behind shut out everything except just the roof of the tallest hayrick. As one sat on the sward behind the elm, with the back turned on the rick and nothing in front but the tall elms and the oaks in the other hedge, it was quite easy to fancy it the verge of the prairie with the backwoods close by.
[O]f a sudden the trees began to thin and the sward to spread out onto a broad, green lawn, where five cows lay in the sunshine and droves of black swine wandered unchecked.
Only where George stood was there left a sward as of yore; the great, level, green lawn that served for both the Major's house and his daughter's.
gloss: The upper layer of the ground, especially when vegetation is growing on it.
pos: noun
tags: countable
obsolete
examples: The roots of the Apple-tree, Olive, and Cypreſſe, lie very ebbe, and creepe hard under the ſourd of the ground.
gloss: The rind of bacon or pork; also, the outer covering or skin of something.
pos: noun
tags: countable
dialectal
gloss: To cover (ground, etc.) with sward.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: Of ground, etc.: to be covered with sward; to develop a covering of sward.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: [Land...] will not sward again […]
[…] for the ground immediately after corn is many years before it swards, and […]
... with soil of a similar character, several fields have been laid down and ploughed up again under the old plea that they will not sward.
Derived words: greensward
swardy
swarded
Translations: