different between swart vs ebon

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /sw??(?)t/
• (US) IPA^(key): /sw??t/
• Rhymes: -??(?)t

Etymology 1

From Middle English swart, from Old English sweart, from Proto-West Germanic *swart, from Proto-Germanic *swartaz, from Proto-Indo-European *swerd-.

Adjective

swart (comparative swarter, superlative swartest)

1. Of a dark hue; moderately black; swarthy; tawny.
   • 1400s: Thomas Occleve, Hymns to the Virgin

     Men schalle then sone se / Att mydday hytt shalle swarte be

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book 2

     A nation strange, with visage swart

   • Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious,

   • 1819, John Keats, Otho the Great, Act II, Scene I, verses 91-92

     I'll choose a gaoler, whose swart monstrous face

     Shall be a hell to look upon […]

   • 1836, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Old Ticonderoga

     The merry soldiers footing it with the swart savage maids

   • 1925 Ezra Pound, "Canto I"

     […] unpierced ever

     With glitter of sun rays

     Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven

     Swartest night stretched over wretched men there.

2. (Britain dialectal) Black.
3. (obsolete) Gloomy; malignant.
   • 1905, Samuel Major Gardenhire, The Silence of Mrs. Harrold - Page 277:

     The keeping eunuchs were at back, solemn in stately rows, bespeared and bescimitared, the Danish, Irish, and German of their countenances lost in the daub which made them swart.

   • 1906, Lord Dunsany, Time and the Gods

     Suddenly the swart figure of Time stood up before the gods, with both hands dripping with blood and a red sword dangling idly from his fingers, and said: “Sardathrion is gone! I have overthrown it!”

Derived terms

• swarten
• swarty

Related terms

• forswart
• swartness

Noun

swart (plural swarts)

1. (Britain dialectal) Black or dark dyestuff; something of a certain swart; something of a certain ocker.

Related terms

• swarth

Etymology 2

From Middle English swarten, from Old English sweartian, from Proto-West Germanic *swart?n, from Proto-Germanic *swart?n?; synchronically analyzable as swart +? -en.

Verb

swart (third-person singular simple present swarts, present participle swarting, simple past and past participle swarted)

1. (transitive) To make swart or tawny; blacken; tan.
   • 1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica

     […] the heate of the Sun, whose fervor may swarte a living part, and even black a dead or dissolving flesh,

Etymology 3

Variant of sward.

Noun

swart (uncountable)

1. Obsolete spelling of sward
   • 1587: Raphael Holinshed, Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland [1]

     Howbeit where the rocks and quarrie grounds are, I take the swart of the earth to be so thin, that no tree of anie greatnesse, other than shrubs and bushes, is able to grow or prosper long therein for want of sufficient moisture wherewith to feed them with fresh humour, or at the leastwise of mould […]

Further reading

• swart in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• William Dwight Whitney and Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1914) , “swart”, in The Century Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language, volume V, revised edition, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., OCLC 1078064371.

Anagrams

• Straw, straw, warts

Afrikaans

Etymology

From Dutch zwart , from Proto-Germanic *swartaz.

Adjective

swart (attributive swart, comparative swarter, superlative swartste)

1. black
2. Black

Antonyms

• wit

German Low German

Alternative forms

• swatt (Münsterländisch)
• schwart (Paderbornisch)

Etymology

From Middle Low German swart, from Old Saxon swart, from Proto-West Germanic *swart, from Proto-Germanic *swartaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /swart/, /swa?t/, /sva?t/
• IPA^(key): /zwart/, /zwa?t/
• IPA^(key): /swat/, /svat/

Adjective

swart (comparative swärter, superlative swärtst)

1. black

Declension

Gothic

Romanization

swart

1. Romanization of ????????????????????

Middle Dutch

Etymology

From Old Dutch swart, from Proto-West Germanic *swart, from Proto-Germanic *swartaz.

Adjective

swart

1. black

Inflection

This adjective needs an inflection-table template.

Descendants

• Dutch: zwart
  • Afrikaans: swart
• Limburgish: zwart
• West Flemish: zwort

Further reading

• “swart”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000
• Verwijs, E.; Verdam, J. (1885–1929) , “swart (I)”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, ?ISBN, page I

Middle English

Alternative forms

• (Early ME) sweorte, swearte, sweart, swærte
• swarte, suart, suarte, swert, swerte

Etymology

From Old English sweart, from Proto-West Germanic *swart, from Proto-Germanic *swartaz; compare Middle Dutch swart, Middle Low German swart, Middle High German swarz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /swart/, /sw?rt/

Adjective

swart (plural and weak singular swarte, comparative swarter)

1. Dark, oppressive, blackened.
2. Black; swart.
   1. Black-skinned, swarthy; having dark skin.
   2. (rare) Bruised, heavily wounded.
3. (rare) Evil, malign.

Derived terms

• swarten
• swartish
• swartnesse

Descendants

• English: swart, swarth
• Scots: swart

References

• “swart, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-06-23.

Old Saxon

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *swart, from Proto-Germanic *swartaz.

Adjective

swart

1. black

Declension

Descendants

• Middle Low German: swart
  • Low German:
    • German Low German: swart, schwart

      Hamburgisch: swatt

    • Westphalian:

      Münsterländisch: swatt

      Paderbornisch: schwart

      Ravensbergisch-Lippisch: sw?rt, swat

      Sauerländisch: schwart, schwatt, schwuat, schwoart, schwuart, schwoert

      Westmünsterländisch: schwatt, schwott, schwart

      ? German: schwatt

  • Plautdietsch: schwoat
  • ? Danish: sværte (“black dye”)

Scots

Etymology 1

From Middle English swart, from Old English sweart, from Proto-West Germanic *swart, from Proto-Germanic *swartaz.

Noun

swart (plural swarts)

1. Black or dark dyestuff.

Etymology 2

From Old Norse svartr.

Adjective

swart (comparative mair swart, superlative maist swart)

1. Black; swarthy.

Derived terms

• swartback

West Frisian

Etymology

From Old Frisian swart, swert, from Proto-West Germanic *swart, from Proto-Germanic *swartaz.

Adjective

swart

1. black

Inflection

Further reading

• “swart (I)”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011

Noun

swart n (plural swarten)

1. black

Further reading

• “swart (II)”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011

English

Alternative forms

• hebene (obsolete)

Etymology

From Old French eban (modern ébène), from Latin ebenus, from Ancient Greek ?????? (ébenos, “ebony tree”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??b?n/

Noun

ebon (plural ebons)

1. (now poetic) Ebony; an ebony tree.

Adjective

ebon (comparative more ebon, superlative most ebon)

1. (poetic) Made of ebony.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.5:

     “A stranger knight,” sayd he, “unknowne by name, / But knowne by fame, and by an Hebene speare […].”

   • 1745, Edward Young, Night-Thoughts, I:

     Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, / In rayless majesty, now stretches forth / Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world.

2. (poetic) Black in colour.

Anagrams

• Beno, Boen, Bone, Bône, bone