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swan

Pronunciation: /swɒn/

The English word “swan” has 5 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. Any of various species of large, long-necked waterfowl, of genus Cygnus (bird family: Anatidae), most of which have white plumage.
  2. One whose grace etc. suggests a swan.
  3. This bird used as a heraldic charge, sometimes with a crown around its neck (e. g. the arms of Buckinghamshire).

verb

  1. To travel or move about in an aimless, idle, or pretentiously casual way.
  2. To declare (chiefly in first-person present constructions).

Etymology

From Middle English swan, from Old English swan, from Proto-West Germanic *swan, from Proto-Germanic *swanaz (“swan”, literally “the singing bird”), from Proto-Indo-European *swonh₂-/*swenh₂- (“to sing, make sound”). Cognate with West Frisian swan, Low German Swaan, swan, Dutch zwaan, German Schwan, Danish svane, Norwegian svane, Swedish svan. Related also to Old English ġeswin (“melody, song”),…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.