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Somber vs Swart - What's the difference?

somber | swart | Related terms |

Somber is a related term of swart.


As adjectives the difference between somber and swart

is that somber is dark or dreary in character; joyless, and grim while swart is of a dark hue; moderately black; swarthy; tawny.

As verbs the difference between somber and swart

is that somber is while swart is to make swart or tawny; as, to swart a living part; blacken; tan.

As a noun swart is

black or dark dyestuff; something of a certain swart; something of a certain ocker or swart can be .

somber

English

Alternative forms

* (Commonwealth English) sombre

Adjective

(er)
  • Dark or dreary in character; joyless, and grim.
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=2002 , author=Dirk Wittenborn , title=Fierce People , passage=My mother prepared herself for the evening with the same somber deliberateness of the gladiators in Spartacus .}}
  • Dark, lacking color or brightness.

    • Synonyms

    * melancholy, unhappy, sad

    Verb

    (en verb)

    • References

    * *

    Anagrams

    * ----

    swart

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) swart, from (etyl) . Compare (l), (l).

    Adjective

    (er)
  • Of a dark hue; moderately black; swarthy; tawny.
  • * 1400s:' , ''Hymns to the Virgin'' - Men schalle then sone se / Att mydday hytt shalle ' swarte be
  • * 1590', , ''The Faerie Queene'', Book 2 - A nation strange, with visage ' swart
  • * , III-i - Lame, foolish, crooked, swart , prodigious,
  • * 1819 , , Otho the Great , Act II, Scene I, verses 91-92
    • I'll choose a gaoler, whose swart monstrous face
    Shall be a hell to look upon […]
  • * 1836', , ''Old Ticonderoga'' - The merry soldiers footing it with the ' swart savage maids
  • Black.
  • (obsolete) Gloomy; malignant.
  • * 1906', , ''Time and the Gods'' - Suddenly the ' swart figure of Time stood up before the gods, with both hands dripping with blood and a red sword dangling idly from his fingers, and said: “Sardathrion is gone! I have overthrown it!”
    • (Milton)
    Derived terms
    * swarten * Swart star, (Rare): the Dog Star -- so called from its appearing during the hot weather of summer, which makes swart the countenance. * swarthy (< swarty)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Black or dark dyestuff; something of a certain swart; something of a certain ocker.

    • Etymology 2

    From (etyl) swarten, from (etyl) .

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To make swart or tawny; as, to swart a living part; blacken; tan.
  • * 1646', , ''Pseudodoxia Epidemica'' - the heate of the Sun, whose fervor may ' swarte a living part, and even black a dead or dissolving flesh,

    • Etymology 3

    Variant of sward.

    Noun

    (-)
  • * 1587: Raphael Holinshed, Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland [http://www.archive.org/stream/holinshedschroni01holi#page/356/mode/1up]
    • Howbeit where the rocks and quarrie grounds are, I take the swart of the earth to be so thin, that no tree of anie greatnesse, other than shrubs and bushes, is able to grow or prosper long therein for want of sufficient moisture wherewith to feed them with fresh humour, or at the leastwise of mould...

    References

    * *

    Anagrams

    * ----