Swire

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The neck or throat, a term used chiefly in Scottish dialect ; a shallow dip or saddle lying between two hilltops in northern English and Scots usage
2. A Scottish word for the neck of a person or animal ; a low hollow or gap found between hills in regional northern dialect
3. Chiefly Scots for the throat or neck area ; in northern dialect, the low point or depression where two hills meet along a ridge

Etymology: "Swire" is an old English word for the neck, or more specifically the part of the neck at the back, where it joins the shoulders. It came into Middle English from Old English "swēora," which in turn descends from a Proto-Germanic form, "*swerhô," reconstructed by scholars from the shared ancestry of the Germanic languages. The same root gave the Dutch "zwer" and German "Schwäre," though the sense in those languages drifted toward a swelling or an abscess. Because the word survived mainly in dialect and poetry, most readers now meet it only in older writing, where it appears as a fixed, slightly archaic term for the nape. Its history is a simple one: a native Germanic word, passed down through English without borrowing from Latin or French, that has outlived its everyday use.

Synonyms: neck