Other forms: swans
A swan is a large graceful white water bird with a long curved neck. A pair of swans, swans on the river, a swan took off.
In Britain all unmarked mute swans on open water belong to the Crown, which is a genuine law and the origin of a great many pub facts. Swans are famously bad-tempered and will see off a dog. Note swan song, meaning a final performance, from the belief that a swan sings once before it dies, and the verb to swan about, which is British informal for moving around in a leisurely and slightly annoying way.
1nounswanA large white water bird with a long curved neck.
“A swan came up the bank and everybody moved.”
2verbmoveTo move about in a leisurely way, informally.
“He swanned in at eleven as though nothing had happened.”
swan is a bird.
Old English swan is shared across the Germanic languages and may come from a root meaning to sound or sing — the same root as sound. If so the bird is named for a voice it barely has, which is where the swan song story comes from.
Middle English
swan
English, today
swan
Built from
From Middle English swan. From Middle English swan, from Old English swan, from Proto-West Germanic swan, from Proto-Germanic swanaz (“swan”) literally “the singing bird”, from Proto-Indo-European swonh₂-/swenh₂- (“to sing, make sound”). Cognate with West Frisian swan, Low German Swaan, swan, Dutch zwaan, German Schwan, Danish svane, Norwegian svane, Swedish svan. Related also to Old English ġeswin (“melody, song”), Old English swinsian (“to make melody”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA