sward
noun
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's. The word's specific grassy sense dates back more than 500 years, but it rarely crops up in contemporary writing. The term, however, has been planted in a number of old novels, such as in this quote from 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...."
Example Sentences
Nathan Baird, cleveland, 8 Nov. 2020 The soft Smyrna rug in the hall yields to the tread like a mossy sward, while a circular art glass window fills the hall with a pleasant subdued light. Merrie Monteagudo, San Diego Union-Tribune, 29 Sep. 2019 Word History
Middle English, from Old English sweard, swearth skin, rind; akin to Middle High German swart skin, hide
15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1
swards
noun
Synonyms & Similar Words
- grasses
- lawns
- green
- grasslands
- grounds
- tracts
- clearings
- plots
- plats
- plains
- meadows
- pastures
- steppes
- heaths
- savannas
- prairies
- greenswards
- pampas
- moors
- floodplains
- campos
- leys
- lowlands
- downs
- parcels
- tundras
- flats
- llanos
- pasturelands
- leas
- bottomlands
- savannahs
- uplands
- glades
- lots
- velds
- plateaus
- champaigns
- fields
- tablelands
- tables
- plateaux
- veldts
- bottoms