swinker

S1W4I1N1K5E1R1

noun

A toiler; a labourer.

OriginMiddle English swinkere →
Scrabble 14
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Meanings

nounswinker (plural swinkers)

plural swinkers

  1. archaicdialectalA toiler; a labourer.

    Tosspots and swinkers were they then; tosspots and swinkers are they still.

    1891, Harper's magazine, volume 83, page 786
    2 more examples

    Ye are twin swinkers in this nether field / One to prolong, the other to expand, / My landmark and my clock; but both must yield, / To the destroying angel's flaming wand, […]

    1845, Thomas Ignatius M. Forster, Richard Gough, Epistolarium

    […] whether they were quizzed by "those idle gallants who haunt taverns, gay and handsome," or hobnobbed with "travellers and tinkers, sweaters and swinkers," the alehouse was assuredly no place for nuns.

    2010, Eileen Power, Medieval English Nunneries

Origin

  1. Middle Englishswinkere
  2. Englishswinker

From Middle English swinkere, equivalent to swink + -er.

More words from Middle English

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with swinker

linkerthinkerdrinkersinkerpinkerclinkerinkerstinkerblinkerwinkerhook, line and sinkerjinkerrod, line and sinker
All rhymes →

Anagrams

winkers
Cite this entry
APA

swinker. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/swinker

MLA

“swinker.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/swinker. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “swinker,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/swinker.

Source: swinker on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.