swike

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swike

/swaɪk/

Rhymes with -aɪk

Where it comes from

From Middle English swiken, from Old English swīcan (“to wander, depart, cease from, yield, give way, fail, fall short, be wanting, abandon, desert, turn traitor, deceive, rebel”), from Proto-West Germanic *swīkwan, from Proto-Germanic *swīkwaną (“to dodge, swerve, avoid, betray”), from Proto-Indo-European *sweyg- (“to turn, move around, wander, swing”).

verb swikes · swiking · swoke · swicken

dialectal, obsolete, transitive To deceive, cheat; betray.
Similar: double-cross, sell out, stab in the back, assfuck, betray, burn, cop out, cross out, cross up, do someone dirty, do the dirty on, false
dialectal, obsolete, transitive To stop, cease.
Similar: desist, halt, anchor, astand, blin, brake, cease, draw up, grind to a halt, hold, immobilize, leave off

adjective more swike · most swike

dialectal, obsolete Deceitful; treacherous.
Similar: guiled, perfidious, trothless, beguiling, deceitful, deceptious, deceptive, deceptory, fallacious, fraudful, fraudulent, mendacious

noun swikes

Scotland, dialectal Deceit; treachery.
Similar: perfidy, prodition, traitory, betrayal, breach of promise, breach of trust, double-dealing, Judas kiss, perfidiousness, Punic faith, stab in the back, swike
dialectal, obsolete A deceiver; betrayer, traitor. The Saxon Chronicle contradicts itself as to Algar's outlawry, stating in one passage that he was outlawed without any kind of guilt, and in another that he was outlawed as swike, or traitor, and that he made a confession of it before all the men there gathered.
Similar: rat, renegade, treasonist, backstabber, betrayer, cockatrice, double-crosser, quisling, ratter, recreant, serpent, snake
dialectal, obsolete A hiding place; den; cave.

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MLA

"swike." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/swike. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

swike. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/swike

Chicago

"swike." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/swike.

BibTeX

@misc{swike_2026,
  title = {swike},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/swike},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}