Link Centre Dictionary

swine

UK/swaɪn/ US/ˈswaɪn/ fairly common slang

noun

1.

stout-bodied short-legged omnivorous animals

Origin

From 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”). * In modern use, especially as a term of abuse, frequently a calque of German Schwein or its derivatives. * In reference to wolffish, a clipping of swinefish. Cognates Related to West Frisian swyn, Low German Swien, Dutch zwijn, German Schwein, Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish svin, Faroese and Icelandic svín, and more distantly to Polish świnia, Russian свинья́ (svinʹjá), Latin sūinus, Latin sūs, Ancient Greek ὗς (hûs), Persian خوک (xuk).

Phrases

  • African swine fever virus
  • Blind Swine Mate
  • cast pearls before swine
  • Gadarene swine
  • giant thorny-headed worm of swine
  • go the entire swine
  • pearls before swine
  • sea swine

Related words

Broader terms

Parts

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.