swart
/ˈswɔːt/US/ˈswɔɹt/
swart adjective: of a dark hue; moderately black; swarthy; tawny. Also the obsolete spelling of sward.
Adjective
swart (comparative swarter, superlative swartest)
- Of a dark hue; moderately black; swarthy; tawny.
- 1400s: Thomas Occleve, Hymns to the Virgin
Men schalle then sone se / Att mydday hytt shalle swarte be - A nation strange, with visage swart1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
- 1400s: Thomas Occleve, Hymns to the Virgin
- Black.
- Gloomy; malignant.
- Suddenly the swart figure of Time stood up before the gods, with both hands dripping with blood and a red sword dangling idly from his fingers, and said: “Sardathrion is gone! I have overthrown it!”1906, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], Time and the Gods, London: William Heineman, →OCLC, page 4
Noun
swart
- Black or dark dyestuff.
Verb
swart (third-person singular simple present swarts, present participle swarting, simple past and past participle swarted)
Proper noun capitalized: Swart
Swart (plural Swarts)
- A surname.
Also used as
swart is also the obsolete spelling of sward.
swart is also the variant of swath.
Examples of swart in a sentence
- Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious,c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, &...
- The merry soldiers footing it with the swart savage maids1836, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Old Ticonderoga:
- The keeping eunuchs were at back, solemn in stately rows, bespeared and bescimitared, the Danish, Irish, and German of their countenances lost in the daub which made them swart.1905, Samuel Major Gardenhire, The Silence of Mrs. Harrold - Page 277:
Forms of swart
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | swarter |
| superlative | swartest |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | swarts |
| present participle | swarting |
| past participle | swarted |
| past | swarted |
| Noun | |
| plural | swarts |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Swarts |
Origin of swart
From Middle English swart, from Old English sweart, from Proto-West Germanic *swart, from Proto-Germanic *swartaz, from Proto-Indo-European *swerd-. Doublet of Schwarz.
From Middle English swarten, from Old English sweartian, from Proto-West Germanic *swartōn, from Proto-Germanic *swartōną. By surface analysis, swart + -en.
Variant of sward.
Words formed from swart
Words that rhyme with swart
44 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- export
- mort
- assort
- escort
- fort
- quart
- resort
- retort
- thwart
- wart
- cavort
- comport
- detort
- distort
- extort
- transport
- apport
- come short
- consort
- contort
- desport
- ort
- purport
- reimport
- tort
- accourt
- aport
- asnort
- asport
- bort
- coreport
- Crown Court
- dort
- exhort
- Isle aux Morts
- kangaroo court
- misreport
- reexport
- rereport
- rort
- skort
- spoilsport
- torte
- worrywart
Questions about swart
- What does swart mean?
- Swart means of a dark hue; moderately black; swarthy; tawny.
- How do you use swart in a sentence?
- Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious,
- What part of speech is swart?
- Swart can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce swart?
- Swart is pronounced /ˈswɔːt/ (UK).
Words near swart in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: swart (page history and authors); Swart (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-swart.wav.
Cite this entry: “swart.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/swart. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.