At 5:23:39 PM on Saturday, February 15, 2003, John L. Berry
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