swoon

American  

[swoon] / swun /

verb (used without object)

1. to faint; lose consciousness.

2. to enter a state of hysterical rapture or ecstasy.

   The teenagers swooned at the sight of the singing star.

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noun

1. a faint or fainting fit; syncope.

swoon British  

/ swuːn /

verb

1. a literary word for faint

2. to become ecstatic

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noun

1. an instance of fainting

Other Word Forms

• swooning adjective
• swooningly adverb
• unswooning adjective

Etymology

Origin of swoon

First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English (verb) swo(w)nen “to faint,” originally as gerund swowening, swoghning “act of swooning,” ultimately continuing Old English -swōgan (in compounds) “to rush, overrun, choke”; Middle English (noun) partly derivative of the verb, partly extracted from in (a) swoune, on swoune, alteration of a swoune, aswoune “in a swoon,” as if equivalent to a a- ¹ + swoon (noun), but probably continuing Old English āswōgen, past participle of āswōgan “to overcome” ( a- ³ ), or geswōgen (past participle) “senseless, dead”

Example Sentences

Data showing US unemployment rising and inflation slowing gave the Federal Reserve more room to lower borrowing costs and provided some much-needed pep to markets after a recent swoon.

From Barron's

Listen to Blade Bird: The album's swooning climax, based on a Basque poem about the tension between love and possession.

From BBC

“Spartacus: Blood and Sand” arrived smack in the middle of the most prestigious stretch of television’s modern Golden Age, when audiences swooned over “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men.”

From Salon

Traders took silence from New York's Thanksgiving break as a reason to have a breather and take stock of a healthy rebound from November's swoon that was sparked by AI bubble threats.

From Barron's

Cantor’s recent crypto success could prove transitory, given the recent swoon in cryptocurrencies and the industry’s history of booms and busts.

From The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• pass out