From: tgpedersen
Message: 18845
Date: 2003-02-17
> At 5:23:39 PM on Saturday, February 15, 2003, John L. BerryDanish has 'svedjebrug' ('brug' in this constrained sense =
> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > "swidden"
>
> > Another odd word I'd like to know about is "swidden",
> > often used by anthropologists as a synonym for "slash and
> > burn agriculture", and to all appearances an English word,
> > but not in the Compact or Concise OED, Am Herit Dict or
> > Amer.Coll.Dict. It's a perfectly good Norse word (Sw:
> > "svida", to burn (the surface of something), OSw svitha,
> > Isl svitha (but with different "th"s). But how did it
> > become a technical term in anthropology, and why (or where
> > from) was it adopted in such an English form?
>
> It's in OED1 as a variant of <swithen> 'to burn, scorch,
> singe; to be singed', from ON <sviðna> 'to be singed';
> <swithen> is given as obsolete except in dialect. (ON
> <svíða> is rather the source of <swithe> 'to burn, scorch,
> singe', attested ca.1220.) <Swidden> 'to sweal or singe' is
> found in J.O. Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic Words
> (1850), marked as a Northern dialect term. (<Sweal> is
> referred to <swale>, the relevant gloss being 'to singe, or
> burn'.)
>
> The noun <swidden> 'a temporary agricultural plot produced
> by cutting back and burning off vegetative cover' is in MW
> online, dated ca.1868 and derived 'probably from Old Norse
> <svithinn>, past part. of <svitha>' (for which I read
> <svíðinn> and <svída>, resp.).
>
> Brian