sware


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Related to sware: swear words

sware

 (swâr)
v. Archaic
A past tense of swear.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

swear

(swɛər)

v. swore, sworn, swear•ing. v.i.
1. to make a solemn declaration or affirmation by some sacred being or object, as a deity or the Bible.
2. to bind oneself by oath; vow.
3. to give evidence or make a statement on oath.
4. to use profane oaths or language.
v.t.
5. to declare, affirm, etc., by swearing by a deity or a sacred object.
6. to testify or state on oath.
7. to affirm, assert, or say with solemn earnestness.
8. to promise on oath; vow.
9. to take (an oath).
10. to bind by an oath: swore them to secrecy.
11. swear by,
a. to name (a sacred being or object) as one's witness or guarantee in swearing.
b. to have great confidence in.
12. swear in, to admit to office or service by administering an oath.
13. swear off, to promise to give up (something, esp. intoxicating beverages).
14. swear out, to secure (a warrant for arrest) by making an accusation under oath.
[before 900; Middle English sweren, Old English swerian, c. Old Frisian swaria, Old Saxon, Old High German swerian, Old Norse sverja; akin to Gothic swaran to swear; compare answer]
swear′er, n.
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
References in classic literature ?
Yet if you will but dare to sware a great oath, goddess, that here first he will build a glorious temple to be an oracle for men, then let him afterwards make temples and wooded groves amongst all men; for surely he will be greatly renowned.
And Leto sware the great oath of the gods: `Now hear this, Earth and wide Heaven above, and dropping water of Styx (this is the strongest and most awful oath for the blessed gods), surely Phoebus shall have here his fragrant altar and precinct, and you he shall honour above all.'
When from the hail-storm of thy threats I fled I sware thou wouldst not see me here again; But the wild rapture of a glad surprise Intoxicates, and so I'm here forsworn.
'Sir,' they seyde, 'hit shall be done, by the feyth of oure bodyes, and we be men lyvyng.' And there they sware every knyght upon his swerde...
by paraphrasing the equivalent passage in Lawrence Twine's The Patterne of Painfull Adventures of Apollonius of Tyre (1576), one of the two main sources of the play: 'and hee sware a solemne othe, that he would not poule his head, clip his beard, not pare his nailes, untill bee had married his daughter at ripe yeares'(4) (my italics).
The emblematic passages are those of Magnificat hymns (Luke 1:55: "to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors.") and Benedictus (Luke 1:73: "the oath which he sware to our father Abraham").