swine

C2+ Topic:People & Society

US /swaɪn/ UK /swaɪn/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a pig or pigs; a contemptible person

The farmer kept his swine in a muddy enclosure.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a pig or pigs; a... pig hog boar sow scoundrel brute cad

Word family

Forms swinish

Derived forms swineherdswinish

Related forms sow

Appears in

Phrases (1)

See all

swine influenza
an influenza infection affecting pigs

Noun + noun

Etymology

From Old English swīn ('pig'), from Proto-Germanic *swīną, from Proto-Indo-European *suH-ino- ('belonging to the pig'), an adjectival derivative of *suH- ('pig, swine').

swīn Old English *suH- Proto-Indo-European

View etymology graph ->

Topics

People & Society

External links

# swine

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /swaɪn/
**IPA (UK):** /swaɪn/

## Meanings
1. a pig or pigs; a contemptible person

## Examples
- The farmer kept his swine in a muddy enclosure.

## Synonyms
- pig
- hog
- boar
- sow
- scoundrel
- brute
- cad

## Derived Forms
- swineherd
- swinish

## Related Forms
- sow

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: swīn
- Root: *suH-

## Etymology
From Old English swīn ('pig'), from Proto-Germanic *swīną, from Proto-Indo-European *suH-ino- ('belonging to the pig'), an adjectival derivative of *suH- ('pig, swine').

## AI Etymology
Swine comes from Old English swīn ('pig'), from Proto-Germanic *swīną, from Proto-Indo-European *suH-ino- ('belonging to the pig'), an adjectival derivative of *suH- ('pig, swine'). The historical chain includes Old English swīn and Proto-Indo-European *suH-. The quoted older senses, "pig", "belonging to the pig", and "pig, swine", supply the semantic anchors for swine. The formation is best read as borrowed: the word swine carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a noun, "a pig or pigs; a contemptible person". English derivatives include swineherd and swinish; related English forms include sow. The result is a noun whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization.

## Topics
- People & Society

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