Word.ws English Dictionary

forswear

/fə(ɹ)ˈswɛə(ɹ)/

forswear verb: to renounce or deny something, especially under oath.

forswear: a hand holding a glowing light
Photo by Eduardo Taulois on Unsplash

Verb

forswear (third-person singular simple present forswears, present participle forswearing, simple past forswore, past participle forsworn)

  1. (transitive) To renounce or deny something, especially under oath.
    • We forswear allegiance and support for the Economic Freedom Fighters.
    • Never to woo her more; but do forswear her.1592, William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew
    Synonyms:
    abjure, disavow, swear off, deny, disclaim, disown, forsay, renounce, repudiate, wash one's hands of
  2. (intransitive, reflexive) To commit perjury; to break an oath.

forswear meaning in Malayalam

forswear in Malayalam

forgo, renounce, relinquish
ഇല്ലെന്നു ശപഥംചെയ്യുക, ഉപേക്ഷിക്കുക, പരിത്യജിക്കുക, പരസ്യമായി നിരാകരിക്കുക, നിഷേധിക്കുക, മതിയാക്കുക

Examples of forswear in a sentence

  • Like Innocence, and as serenely bold / As Truth, how loudly He forswears thy Gold!.1726, John Dryden, translating Juvenal, Satires:
  • Either forswear fucking others or the affair is over.1995, Philip Roth, Sabbath's Theater:
  • The sheer unimaginableness of coming into her mouth — of coming into anything other than the air or a tissue or a dirty sock — was an allurement too stupendous for a novice to forswear.2008, Philip Roth, Indignation:

Synonyms of forswear

3 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of forswear

Forms of forswear

third-person singular presentforswears
present participleforswearing
pastforswore
past participleforsworn
alternative formforeswear

Past tense of forswear: forswore

Origin of forswear

From Middle English forsweren, from Old English forswerian (“to swear falsely”). Cognate with Old Saxon farswerian, Old High German farsweren, German verschwören. More at for- + swear.

Words formed from forswear

Words that rhyme with forswear

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about forswear

What does forswear mean?
Forswear means to renounce or deny something, especially under oath.
What is forswear in Malayalam?
Forswear in Malayalam is ഇല്ലെന്നു ശപഥംചെയ്യുക, ഉപേക്ഷിക്കുക, പരിത്യജിക്കുക. See Forswear meaning in Malayalam.
How do you use forswear in a sentence?
Like Innocence, and as serenely bold / As Truth, how loudly He forswears thy Gold!.
What part of speech is forswear?
Forswear is a verb.
How do you pronounce forswear?
Forswear is pronounced /fə(ɹ)ˈswɛə(ɹ)/.
What is the past tense of forswear?
The past tense of forswear is forswore.

Words near forswear in the dictionary

  1. forswarted
  2. forswat
  3. forsweal
  4. forswealing
  5. forsweals
  6. forswear
  7. forswearer
  8. forswearers
  9. forswearest
  10. forsweareth
  11. forswearing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: forswear (page history and authors); forswear (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “forswear.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/forswear. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.