swine

nounnouncommon in dialogue

//swaɪn//

A pig, an animal of family Suidae, especially in agricultural contexts.

noun

1
A pig, an animal of family Suidae, especially in agricultural contexts.
The Zimmermann farm raises swine for their meat.
2
Pig, pork, the meat of pigs.
Nah, I ain't Jewish. I just don't dig on swine, that's all.
The Book says don't eat no swine.
3
figurativeA "pig", variously A contemptible person, particularly one imbued with negative piglike characteristics, a greedy, lazy, dirty, and/or lecherous person.
Thousands of workers and students screaming "Get out of town, you Nazi swine!" stormed a police barricade here today in an attempt to silence Adolf von Thadden, head of the right-wing National Democratic party.
Their captain's a swine, an evil bastard. Name of Cavendish.
Don't cast pearls before swine.
4
figurativeA "pig", variously A police officer.
Keep your mouths shut. Don't tell the swine anything.
5
figurativeA "pig", variously A pain, any thing or task that is difficult, annoying, or unpleasant.
That old car is a swine to manoeuvre.
6
obsoleteSynonym of wolffish.

Etymology

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).

noun

1
Also a form of sowarchaicplural of sow

Forms

plural: swines

swimmer · One who swims.swimming · The act or art of sustaining and propelling the body in water.swimsuit · A garment worn for swimming.

swine · A pig, an animal of family Suidae, especially in agricultural contexts.

Swine · A small village and civil parish in the East Riding of…swing · To rotate about an off-centre fixed point.Swing · A surname.

The neighbouring pages — Alphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.