swidden

Possibly from a dialectal form *swiden of Middle English swithen, past participle of Middle English swithen (“to burn, scorch, singe”), from Old Norse svíða (“to singe, burn”). Compare also Old Norse sviðinn (“burnt, singed”, past participle). Alternatively, from Old Norse sviðna (“to be burned”) or Old High German swedan (“to be burned”). Either way, probably ultimately from Proto-Germanic *swīþaną. First attested in 1868. If their respective theories align, then a distant cognate of German Schwyz, hence Swiss.

• IPA^(key): /ˈswɪdn̩/
• Rhymes: -ɪdən

swidden (plural swiddens)

1. An area of land that has been cleared by cutting the vegetation and burning it; slash and burn.
   • 2007 Fall, F. L. (Rick) Bein, “Food Garden Capacity and Population Growth: A Case in Papua New Guinea.”, in Focus on Geography, volume 50, number 2, pages 28–33:

     Kamiali Village is a community of swidden horticulturists and fishers lying 80 kilometers in a south-southeasterly direction along the coast from the City of Lae, Papua New Guinea.

   • 2009 Jul/Aug, Roger Atwood, “Maya Roots”, in Archaeology, volume 62, number 4:

     These facts reinforced the view that the Maya drew their basic sustenance from corn, most of it grown on slash-and-burn plots known as swiddens.

   • 2006 August, Guido Sprenger, “Out of the ashes: Swidden cultivation in highland Laos”, in Anthropology Today, volume 22, number 4, page 9:

     ‘Swidden’ has entered anthropological jargon, denoting not only a practice widespread in non-state societies, but also a problem.

swidden (third-person singular simple present swiddens, present participle swiddening, simple past and past participle swiddened)

1. To clear an area of land by cutting and burning.
   • 2009 February 13, Drake Bennett, quoting James Scott, “The mystery of Zomia”, in The Boston Globe‎, Boston:

     The reason, Scott says, is that swiddening provides a freedom that fixed agriculture does not.

• swiddener

• burn-beat, slash and burn

• Diamond, Jared (2004). Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, page 163. →ISBN.
• Sprenger, Guido. "Out of the ashes: Swidden cultivation in highland Laos." Anthropology Today 22.4 (August 2006), 9-13.
• Izikowitz, K.G. (1979 ). Lamet: Hill peasants in French Indochina. New York: AMS Press.