Definition of "swink"

swink¹

/swɪŋk/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural swinks
1. (archaic) toil, work, drudgery
  Quotations
  Dead on this homecoming cue Jack came home, his hands sheerfree of salesman’s swink, ready for Enderby.
  1963, Anthony Burgess, Inside Mr. Enderby

swink²

/swɪŋk/

verb
third-person singular simple present swinks, present participle swinking, simple past swank or swonk or swinkt or swinked, past participle swunk or swunken or swonken or swinkt or swinked
1. (archaic, intransitive) To labour, to work hard
  Quotations
  Honour, estate, and all this worldes good, / For which men swinck and sweat incessantly
  1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, stanza 8
  And on this board were frightful swords and knives that are made in a great cavern by swinking demons out of white flames that they fix in the horns of buffalos and stags that there abound marvellously.
  1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […]
2. (archaic, transitive) To cause to toil or drudge; to tire or exhaust with labor.
  Quotations
  And the swinked hedger at his supper sat.
  1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903,
  There was no internal graphite coating; instead a metal shield was used to collect the beam current the swinked electrons which in their prime had caused the screen to fluoresce.
  1985, Rodney Dale, The Sinclair Story, page 65

Definition of "swink"

swink1

noun

Quotations

swink2

verb

Quotations

Quotations

swink¹

swink²