Swink

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To work hard and diligently, often performing physical or laborious tasks with sustained effort; to toil persistently at a demanding activity or chore
2. Engaging in strenuous, steady labor typically associated with manual or industrious work; applying consistent exertion and dedication towards completing a task
3. To put forth continuous and earnest effort in working, especially involving hard manual labor or prolonged activity; striving industriously to achieve a goal through persistent endeavor

Etymology: Old English "swincan" meant "to labour" or "to work," and it came from a Proto-Germanic root, "*swinkaną," whose earliest sense was "to swing" or "to bend." The shift from swinging to toiling is easy to picture: a person working at a task moves the body rhythmically, bending and swinging, and over centuries the motion of the work came to name the work itself. Old Norse "svinka," meaning "to work," shows the same development in a sister language. In Old English, "swinc" as a noun covered toil, hardship, and the produce of labour, so the same root could name both the effort and what the effort yielded. The verb survived into Middle English as "swynken," but it grew rarer over time, and today it reads as a poetic or archaic word, most likely kept alive by its appearance in older literature.

Synonyms: work hard, toil, labor, drudge, slave

Antonyms: rest, relax, idle, loaf