swoon
/swuːn
/verb [no object]
1 literary Faint, especially from extreme emotion: Frankie’s mother swooned and had to be helped to the headmaster’s office...
- For a moment, I grew a bit faint at the sight and swooned, but I quickly gathered up my strength.
- People swoon and faint when I casually mention that I don't have a mobile phone.
- He had never met a woman who wouldn't swoon at the sight or mention of death.
2Be overcome with admiration, adoration, or other strong emotion: women swoon over his manly, unaffected ways...
- The wheel of fashion turned full circle during London Fashion Week, with the best designers convincing audiences to swoon over collections they would have balked at this time last year.
- All of us have watched her swoon over many different male characters in movies, and then we have watched the male characters swoon over her at least a dozen times.
- It's great that we swoon over the relationships we see in romantic comedies and cheesy sitcoms, but real life isn't like that.
noun literary
An occurrence of fainting: he found his wife in a swoon...
- Hero is publicly denounced by Claudio on her wedding day, falls into a swoon, and apparently dies.
- This would further be followed by epileptic fits, swoons, faints, wails and finally a happy reunion.
- With great difficulty I refrained from falling to the ground in a heart-stopping swoon and gave a little wave.
Origin
Middle English: the verb from obsolete swown 'fainting', the noun from aswoon 'in a faint', both from Old English geswōgen 'overcome'.
Rhymes
- readably
- readapt
- readaptation
- readaptive
- read-around ratio
- readathon
- read-a-thon
- read-athon
- read between the lines
- readdress
- readeption
- reader
- reader-aloud
- reader-alouder
- reader-friendly
- readerly
- reader-printer
- reader-response
- readership
- reader-writer
- readhere
- readhesion
- native companion
- native currant
- native daphne