Meanings
- literaryrarekenningThe ocean; the open sea.
Ship with me boldly, Follow me gaily, Over the swan's road[.]
1866, C[harles] Kingsley, “How Hereward Succoured a Princess of Cornwall”, in Hereward the Wake, “Last of the English.” […], volume I, London; Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 1242 more examples
Cwæð, hē gūðcyning Ofer swanrāde Sēcean wolde, Mǣrne þēoden, Þā him wæs manna þearf.
1838 July, [Henry Wadsworth Longfellow], “Art[icle] IV.—1. A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language, […]. By the Rev. J[oseph] Bosworth. […] 2. King Alfred’s Anglo-Saxon Version of Boëthius, “De Consolatione Philosophiæ”; […] By J. S. Cardale. […]”, in The North American Review, volume XLVII, number C, Boston, Mass.: Otis, Broaders, & Co., […], →ISSN, →OCLC, page 104, column 2He announced his plan: to sail the swan's road and search out that king, the famous prince who needed defenders.
1999, Seamus Heaney, transl., Beowulf: A New Verse Translation, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, published 2000, →ISBN, page 15, lines 199–201Synonyms: whale-road, whale's road, whale's way
Synonyms & antonyms
nounThe ocean; the open sea.
Origin
- Old Englishswanrād
- Englishswan's road
Calque of Old English swanrād, from swan (“swan”) + rād (“road”).
More words from Old English
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
swan's road. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/swan's%20road
“swan's road.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/swan's%20road. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “swan's road,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/swan's%20road.
Source: swan's road on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.