Word.ws English Dictionary

swithered

swithered is the simple past and past participle of swither.

Meaning of swither

Verb (1)

swither (third-person singular simple present swithers, present participle swithering, simple past and past participle swithered)

  1. (dialectal) To burn, scorch, singe.
  2. (dialectal) To burn slowly, melt (as a candle), sweal
  3. (dialectal, figuratively) To smart, ache; tingle

Verb (2)

swither (third-person singular simple present swithers, present participle swithering, simple past and past participle swithered)

  1. (Northern England, Scotland) To be indecisive or in a state of confusion; to dither.
  2. To move or swing about.
    • He was filling his pipe, staring at his picture, not her, and this tacit dismissal allowed her to sidle over to the bank higher up, and there swither her legs about in the water before coming out of it.1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 51

See all 8 meanings of swither

Questions about swithered

What is swithered the simple past and past participle of?
Swithered is the simple past and past participle of swither.

Words near swithered in the dictionary

  1. switchy
  2. switchyard
  3. switchyards
  4. swith
  5. swither
  6. swithered
  7. swithering
  8. swithers
  9. swithest
  10. Swithin
  11. Swithinbank

Source and license

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