/swaɪn/
OriginFrom Middle English swyn, swin, from Old English swīn, from Proto-West Germanic *swīn, from Proto-Germanic *swīną, from an adjectival form of Proto-Indo-European *suH- (“pig”). By surface analysis, sow + -en.
Cognates
Related to West Frisian swyn, Low German Swien, Dutch zwijn, German Schwein, Danish and Swedish svin, and more distantly to Polish świnia, Russian свинья́ (svinʹjá), Latin sūinus, Latin sūs, Ancient Greek ὗς (hûs), Persian خوک (xuk).
- A pig (the animal).
- The Zimmerman farm introduced swine to their husbandry.
- archaic, form-of, pluralplural of sow
Formsswine(plural) · swines(plural)