swink

Meanings

Noun

• toil, work, drudgery

Verb

• to labour, to work hard
• To cause to toil or drudge; to tire or exhaust with labor.

Origin

• From Middle English swink, from Old English swinc ("toil, work, effort; hardship; the produce of labour").
• From Middle English swinken, from Old English swincan ("to labour, work at, strive, struggle; be in trouble; languish"), from Proto-Germanic *swinkaną ("to swing, bend"), from Proto-Indo-European *sweng-, *swenk-. Cognate with Old Norse svinka ("to work"). Related to swing.