Other forms: swards
A sward is an expanse of short grass. A green sward, the sward before the house, close-cropped sward.
It is literary and agricultural at once, since grassland scientists use it as a technical term for the grass layer. The word first meant a skin or rind, which is the sense of a covering over the ground.
1nounswardAn expanse of short grass.
“Sheep grazed on the green sward that ran gently down to the river.”
sward is a grass.
Middle English swerd first meant a skin or rind, and came to mean the turf covering the ground.
Proto-Germanic
*swarduz — rind; tough skin; turf
Old English
sweard — rind; skin
Middle English
swerd
English, today
sward
Built from
The noun is derived from Middle English swerd, sward (“rind, skin; leather strap; sod, turf”)suerd, swarde, swarffe, swarth, swarthe, swerd, swerde, sworde, from Old English sweard (“rind; skin”), from Proto-Germanic swarduz (“rind; tough skin; turf”); further etymology unknown. The verb is derived from the noun.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA