swoon

English

Alternative forms

• swound (obsolete)

Pronunciation

• enPR: swo͝on, IPA^(key): /swuːn/
• (obsolete) enPR: so͝on, IPA^(key): /suːn/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːn

Etymology 1

From Middle English swoune, swone, from the verb (see below).

Noun

swoon (plural swoons)

1. A faint.
   • 1897, Bram Stoker, chapter 21, in Dracula, New York, N.Y.: Modern Library, →OCLC:

     "I felt my strength fading away, and I was in a half swoon. How long this horrible thing lasted I know not, but it seemed that a long time must have passed before he took his foul, awful, sneering mouth away. I saw it drip with the fresh blood!"

   • 14th century CE, Guanzhong, L., “1. Three Heroes Swear Brotherhood In The Peach Garden; One Victory Shatters The Rebels In Battlegrounds.”, in Brewitt-Taylor, C. H., transl., Romance of the Three Kingdoms‎, published 1925, archived from the original on 25 January 2022:

     As he drew near the throne, a rushing whirlwind arose in the corner of the hall and, lo! from the roof beams floated down a monstrous black serpent that coiled itself up on the very seat of majesty. The Emperor fell in a swoon.

2. An infatuation.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English swounen, swonen (“to faint”), and aswoune (“in a swoon”), both ultimately from Old English ġeswōgen (“insensible, senseless, dead”), past participle of swōgan (“to make a sound, overrun, suffocate”) (compare Old English āswōgan (“to cover over, overcome”)), from Proto-West Germanic *swōgan, from Proto-Germanic *swōganą (“to make a noise”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)weh₂gʰ-.

Cognate with Low German swogen (“to sigh, groan”), Dutch zwoegen (“to groan, breathe heavily”), dialectal Norwegian søgja (“to whistle, hum, talk loudly”). More at sough.

Verb

swoon (third-person singular simple present swoons, present participle swooning, simple past and past participle swooned) (intransitive)

2. (literally) To faint, to lose consciousness.

   Synonyms: black out, faint, pass out

   • 1885, Richard F. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 539:

     I threw myself down on the island ground, like a dead man, and drowned in desolation swooned away, nor did I return to my senses till next morning, when the sun rose and revived me.

   • 1913 January–May, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Gods of Mars”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as “A Fair Goddess”, in The Gods of Mars, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., 1918 September, →OCLC, page 107:

     I dropped the vessel quickly to a lower level. Nor was I a moment too soon. The girl had swooned.

   • 2011 August 2, “Perry the Platypus”, in Phineas and Ferb: Across the 1st and 2nd Dimensions, performed by Randy Crenshaw, Walt Disney Records:

     He's got more than just mad skill / He's got a beaver tail and a bill. / And the women swoon whenever they hear him say…

3. (by extension) To be overwhelmed by emotion, especially infatuation.
4. To make a moan, sigh, or some other sound expressing infatuation or affection.

   The girls swooned at the picture of their favorite actor.

   • 2013 (November 2) Pinky 10 minutes into episode 25 ("The Spy Who Slimed Me") of TV series "Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures" per closed captions

     For sure. He's totally dreamy. Uh--but my heart still belongs to you, Pac-ums.

Derived terms

• swooningly
• swoony

Translations

References

Further reading

• “swoon”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.