English

Noun

swink ‎(plural swinks)

1. (archaic) toil, work, drudgery
   • 1963, Anthony Burgess, Inside Mr. Enderby:

     Dead on this homecoming cue Jack came home, his hands sheerfree of salesman’s swink, ready for Enderby.

Etymology 2

From Middle English swinken, from Old English swincan ‎(“to labour, work at, strive, struggle; be in trouble; languish”), from Proto-Germanic *swinkaną ‎(“to swing, bend”), from Proto-Indo-European *sweng-, *swenk- ‎(“to bend, swing, swivel”). Cognate with Old Norse svinka ‎(“to work”). Related to swing.

Verb

swink ‎(third-person singular simple present swinks, present participle swinking, simple past swank or swonk or swinkt or swinked, past participle swunk or swunken or swonken or swinkt or swinked)

1. (archaic, intransitive) to labour, to work hard
   • 14th century, William Langland, Piers Plowman

     Heremites on an heep · with hoked staues,

     Wenten to Walsyngham · and here wenches after;

     Grete lobyes and longe · that loth were to swynke,

     Clotheden hem in copis · to be knowen fram othere;

     And shopen hem heremites · here ese to haue.

   • Spenser

     for which men swink and sweat incessantly

   • 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses:

     And on this board were frightful swords and knives that are made in a great cavern by swinking demons out of white flames that they fix in the horns of buffalos and stags that there abound marvellously.

2. (archaic, transitive) To cause to toil or drudge; to tire or exhaust with labor.
   • Milton

     And the swinked hedger at his supper sat.

Derived terms

• swinker

References

• http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dict.asp?Word=swink
• http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?sourceid=Mozilla-search&va=swink

Anagrams

• winks