Word.ws English Dictionary

forswinking

forswinking is the present participle and gerund of forswink.

Meaning of forswink

Verb

forswink (third-person singular simple present forswinks, present participle forswinking, simple past forswank or forswonk or forswonck, past participle forswunken or forswunk or forswonk or forswonck)

  1. (archaic, obsolete, poetic, transitive) To exhaust by labour; overwork.
    • She is my goddess plain,
      And I her shepherd's swain,
      Albe[it] forswonk and forswat I am.1810, original 1579, Edmund Spenser, The Shepheard's Calender

Questions about forswinking

What is forswinking the present participle and gerund of?
Forswinking is the present participle and gerund of forswink.

Words near forswinking in the dictionary

  1. forswears
  2. forswelt
  3. forswelting
  4. forswing
  5. forswink
  6. forswinking
  7. forswinks
  8. forswollen
  9. forswore
  10. forsworn
  11. forswornness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: forswinking (page history and authors); forswink (page history and authors). 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: “forswinking.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/forswinking. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.