Word of the Day

: January 28, 2025

sward

noun SWORD

What It Means

Sward is a literary word that refers to an area of land covered with grass.

// The hikers emerged from the forest to find a green sward dotted with yellow and purple flowers stretching out before them.

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sward in Context

“A century or so ago, if you lived in the Boston area and were obsessed with trees, you were in good company. The Massachusetts Horticultural Society, which had united enthusiasts of rare apples and ornamental maples since 1832, had helped found Mount Auburn Cemetery and endowed it with an immense, exotic plant collection. ... Tree mania seems to have come late to Greenlawn, however. Photographs taken sometime before 1914 show a bleak, bare sward.” — Veronique Greenwood, The Boston Globe, 18 Dec. 2023

Did You Know?

Sward sprouted from the Old English sweard or swearth, meaning “skin” or “rind.” It was originally used as a term for the skin of the body before being extended to another surface—that of the Earth. The word’s specific grassy sense dates to the 16th century, and lives on today mostly in novels from centuries past, such as Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles: “The sun was so near the ground, and the sward so flat, that the shadows of Clare and Tess would stretch a quarter of a mile ahead of them, like two long fingers pointing afar to where the green alluvial reaches abutted against the sloping sides of the vale.”