Etymology

beswink

B3E1S1W4I1N1K5

Today it means: to labour, toil; belabour Full definition →

Middle English beswinken ← Old English beswincan
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Old English · inherited frombeswincan“to labour, toil, exert oneself”
  2. Middle English · inherited frombeswinken
  3. English todaybeswink

From Middle English beswinken, from Old English beswincan (“to labour, toil, exert oneself”); equivalent to be- + swink. More at swink.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.