sworn
/swɔːn//swɔɹn/
sworn is the past participle of swear.
Adjective
sworn (not comparable)
- Given or declared under oath.
- His sworn statement convinced the judge.
- Bound as though by an oath.
- I'm sworn to secrecy.
- Swum ashore, man, like a duck. I can swim like a duck, I'll be sworn.1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published...
- Ardent, devout.
- a sworn foe
- a sworn socialist
Meaning of swear
Verb (1)
swear (third-person singular simple present swears, present participle swearing, simple past swore or (archaic) sware, past participle sworn or (nonstandard) swore)
- To take an oath, to promise intensely, solemnly, and/or with legally binding effect.
- The knight swore not to return to the palace until he had found the treasure.
- To take an oath that an assertion is true.
- The witness swore that the person she had seen running out of the bank was a foot shorter than the accused.
- To promise intensely that something is true; to strongly assert.
- I swear I don't know what you're talking about.
- To administer an oath to (a person).
- Let the witness be sworn.
- To use offensive, profane, or obscene language.
- An Australian was once appointed on contract, but he swore too much.1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 38
- Synonyms:
- curse, execrate, turn the air blue
Verb (2)
swear (third-person singular simple present swears, present participle swearing, simple past and past participle sweared)
- To be lazy; rest for a short while during working hours.
- Synonyms:
- laze about, loaf, take it easy
Origin of sworn
From Middle English sworen, isworen, from Old English sworen, ġesworen, from Proto-West Germanic *swaran, *giswaran, from Proto-Germanic *swaranaz, past participle of Proto-Germanic *swarjaną (“to swear”), equivalent to swear + -en.
Words formed from sworn
Phrases with sworn
Words that rhyme with sworn
Questions about sworn
- What does sworn mean?
- Sworn means given or declared under oath.
- What is sworn the past participle of?
- Sworn is the past participle of swear.
- What part of speech is sworn?
- Sworn is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce sworn?
- Sworn is pronounced /swɔːn/ (UK).
Words near sworn in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sworn (page history and authors); swear (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)-Pvanp7-sworn.wav, En-us-sworn.ogg.
Cite this entry: “sworn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sworn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
