swoon
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Swoon
English
Alternative forms
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
From Middle English swoune, swone, from the verb (see below).
Noun
swoon (plural swoons)
- A faint.
- 1897, Bram Stoker, chapter 21, in Dracula, New York, N.Y.: Modern Library, →OCLC:
- "I felt my strength fading away, and I was in a half swoon. How long this horrible thing lasted I know not, but it seemed that a long time must have passed before he took his foul, awful, sneering mouth away. I saw it drip with the fresh blood!"
- 14th century CE, Guanzhong, L., “1. Three Heroes Swear Brotherhood In The Peach Garden; One Victory Shatters The Rebels In Battlegrounds.”, in Brewitt-Taylor, C. H., transl., Romance of the Three Kingdoms, published 1925, archived from the original on 25 January 2022:
- As he drew near the throne, a rushing whirlwind arose in the corner of the hall and, lo! from the roof beams floated down a monstrous black serpent that coiled itself up on the very seat of majesty. The Emperor fell in a swoon.
- An infatuation.
Derived terms
Translations
a faint
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infatuation — see infatuation
Etymology 2
From Middle English swounen, swonen (“to faint”), and aswoune (“in a swoon”), both ultimately from Old English ġeswōgen (“insensible, senseless, dead”), past participle of swōgan (“to make a sound, overrun, suffocate”) (compare Old English āswōgan (“to cover over, overcome”)), from Proto-West Germanic *swōgan, from Proto-Germanic *swōganą (“to make a noise”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)weh₂gʰ-.
Cognate with Low German swogen (“to sigh, groan”), Dutch zwoegen (“to groan, breathe heavily”), dialectal Norwegian søgja (“to whistle, hum, talk loudly”). More at sough.
Verb
swoon (third-person singular simple present swoons, present participle swooning, simple past and past participle swooned) (intransitive)
- (literally) To faint, to lose consciousness.
- 1885, Richard F. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 539:
- I threw myself down on the island ground, like a dead man, and drowned in desolation swooned away, nor did I return to my senses till next morning, when the sun rose and revived me.
- 1913 January–May, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Gods of Mars”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as “A Fair Goddess”, in The Gods of Mars, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., 1918 September, →OCLC, page 107:
- I dropped the vessel quickly to a lower level. Nor was I a moment too soon. The girl had swooned.
- 2011 August 2, “Perry the Platypus”, in Phineas and Ferb: Across the 1st and 2nd Dimensions, performed by Randy Crenshaw, Walt Disney Records:
- He's got more than just mad skill / He's got a beaver tail and a bill. / And the women swoon whenever they hear him say…
- (by extension) To be overwhelmed by emotion, especially infatuation.
- To make a moan, sigh, or some other sound expressing infatuation or affection.
- The girls swooned at the picture of their favorite actor.
- 2013 (November 2), Pinky, 10 minutes into episode 25 ("The Spy Who Slimed Me") of TV series "Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures" per closed captions
- [Swoons] For sure. He's totally dreamy. Uh--but my heart still belongs to you, Pac-ums.
Derived terms
Translations
to faint — see also faint
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References
- Jespersen, Otto (1909) A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles (Sammlung germanischer Elementar- und Handbücher; 9), volumes I: Sounds and Spellings, London: George Allen & Unwin, published 1961, § 7.31, page 212.
Further reading
- “swoon”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
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