swain
noun
Simple meaning
A man who is the lover of a man or woman.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
swaynIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsweɪn
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
poetic
A man who is the lover of a man or woman
poetic
A rural lover; a male sweetheart in a pastoral setting.
archaic
A country labourer; a countryman, a rustic.
obsolete
A young man or boy in service; a servant.
obsolete
A knight's servant; an attendant.
A surname.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A man who is the lover of a man or woman
Used this way, swain is a rare word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in literature or storytelling contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Formal
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Rare
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Literary and expressive
Where it naturally appears
- Literature/storytelling
Usage note
Comfortable in writing and prepared speech; in casual conversation a shorter everyday word usually sounds more natural.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.