forswonk

forswonk

English

Etymology

From for- +‎ swonk, past participle of swink (“to labour”).

Adjective

forswonk (comparative more forswonk, superlative most forswonk)

1. (obsolete) exhausted; worn out
   • 1579, Sir Edmund Spenser, “The Shepheardes Calender: April”, in John Payne Collier, editor, The Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 1‎, published 1862, lines 95-99, page 47:

     Soone as my younglings cryen for the dam,
     To her will I offer a milkwhite Lamb:
     Shee is my goddeſſe plaine,
     And I her ſhepherds ſwayne,
     Albee forſwonck and forſwatt I am.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for forswonk in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)