swoon means A faint. It carries an Arena rating of 1861, earned across 35 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, swoon ranks #1,936 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #2,261 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words, #2,338 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #3,741 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words.
swoon is pronounced /swuːn/.
Why “swoon” is a great word
To faint or lose consciousness from an overwhelming flood of emotion, most often romantic infatuation. From Middle English swounen (verb), probably a back-formation from the gerund swowening, swoghning, itself from Old English geswōgen (past participle of swōgan, 'to choke, suffocate', of obscure origin). Unlike 'faint,' a clinical term for any lapse into unconsciousness, or 'infatuation,' which names the foolish passion itself, 'swoon' captures the precise, theatrical collapse caused by that passion. It is the sudden buckling of knees at a lover's glance, the world dissolving into a velvet blur at the sound of a sonnet, the breath catching so completely in the throat that the body simply gives up the ghost of composure—a small, voluntary death performed in the name of being terribly, exquisitely alive.
Etymology
From Middle English swoune, swone, from the verb (see below).
noun
- A faint.e.g.“She dandled it, and dancet it up and doune, / Not ceasing till she rais'd it from his swoune.” — 1593, Thomas Nashe, The Choice of Valentines, lines 138-139:
- An infatuation.
verb
- To faint, to lose consciousness.e.g.“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.” — 1885, Richard F. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 539:
- To be overwhelmed by emotion, especially infatuation.
- To overwhelm with emotion, especially infatuation.e.g.“That plush mustache of yours has completely swooned me!” — 2004, Intelligent Systems, translated by Nintendo of America, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Nintendo, GameCube, level/area: Boggly Woods:
- To make a moan, sigh, or some other sound expressing infatuation or affection.e.g.“The girls swooned at the picture of their favorite actor.”
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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