swart
UK /ˈswɔːt/ · US /ˈswɔɹt/ adjective, noun, verb, proper noun
Also a form of sward
Forms swarter swartest swarts swarting swarted
- adjective Of a dark hue; moderately black; swarthy; tawny.
- adjective (UK dialectal) Black.
- adjective (obsolete) Gloomy; malignant.
- noun (UK dialectal) Black or dark dyestuff.
- verb (transitive) To make swart or tawny; blacken; tan. “to swart a living part”
- proper noun A surname.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English swart, from Old English sweart, from Proto-West Germanic *swart, from Proto-Germanic *swartaz, from Proto-Indo-European *swerd-. Doublet of Schwarz.
From Middle English swarten, from Old English sweartian, from Proto-West Germanic *swartōn, from Proto-Germanic *swartōną. By surface analysis, swart + -en.
Variant of sward.
English and Dutch surname, from swart (“dark-haired, dark-skinned, swarthy”).
Webster’s 1913
- noun Sward. [Obs.] Holinshed.
- adjective Of a dark hue; moderately black; swarthy; tawny. "Swart attendants." Trench. "Swart savage maids." Hawthorne.
- adjective Gloomy; malignant. [Obs.] Milton. Swart star, the Dog Star; --so called from its appearing during the hot weather of summer, which makes swart the countenance. [R.] Milton.
- verb To make swart or tawny; as, to swart a living part. Sir T. Browne.
Etymology [OE. swart, AS. sweart black; akin to OFries, OS. & LG. swart, D. zwart, G. schwartz, OHG. swarz, Icel. svarir, Sw. svart, Dan. sort, Goth. swarts; cf. L. sordes dirt, sordere to be dirty. Cf. Sordid, Surd.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “swart”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details