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As with many other archaic words in English, I'm guessing that "Swind" and "Swynde" came from Scandinavia and Germany where they've kept their old meaning to th
by throwaway4533 4y ago
As with many other archaic words in English, I'm guessing that "Swind" and "Swynde" came from Scandinavia and Germany where they've kept their old meaning to this day:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/schwinden#German https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/schwinden#German
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/svinde#Danish https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/svinde#Danish
A modern example is "oxygen depletion" or "hypoxia" in English/Latin which, in Danish, is called "iltsvind" ("ilt" = oxygen, "svind" = depletion):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoxia_(environmental) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoxia_(environmental)
https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iltsvind https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iltsvind
It is indeed related to swindle/svindle/schwindeln but I don't know when the two words "diverged": https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/schwindeln#German https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/schwindeln#German
If you go back far enough, swind/svind/schwinden may also share a common ancestor with "dwindle": https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/swindan%C4%85 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic...
- defrost 4y agoIndeed - the Vikings (Danes) brought their language to the north of the British Isles and it spread and persisted to today. As I can no longer edit my comment above I should mention that the original text by Bede was written by him in Latin circa AD 731, but the O.E.D. references version translated in early | middle English by other authors in the centuries that followed. It's from one of those that the OED quotes the first written use of Swind | Swynde in <cough> "English" </cough>. ( not so much a language as a kitchen sink full of dregs )