Dictionary

forswink en · VERB

Etymology

From Middle English forswinken, equivalent to for- + swink.

Meanings

1. (archaic, obsolete, poetic, transitive) To exhaust by labour; overwork.
   • She is my goddess plain, And I her shepherd's swain, Albe[it] forswonk and forswat I am. 1810, original 1579, Edmund Spenser, The Shepheard's Calender:
   • If indeed he had so turned from Latin texts to garden-tools, he would certainly have been forswunk. 1943, Ivor John Carnegie Brown, Just Another Word: Comprising A Word in Your Ear & Just Another Word, page 112:
   • And they dried him out and hung him up. My, he swung. Blowing his nose for the lovers; forswunken, forswot. 1995, Frank O'Hara, Donald Merriam Allen, Donald Allen, The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara, page 121:
   • Much of what Ms Sorkin performed was forswunk, and on the heavier side of angst as in Kaddish (in memory of Anna Frank) by Sokolow, which walked hand in hand with Messiaen's score into the deep blue sea where they solemnly sank, as did my spirits. 1980, Artscribe - Issues 21-26, page 116:
   • At which point, Don said: "Sod this. If they don't bloody well want to be arrested for murder, then they can suit themselves. I'm buggered if I'm going to forswink myself." 2004, Mat Coward, Over and Under: A Don Packham and Frank Mitchell Mystery, page 116:

Forms