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thaumasiotestoday at 12:12 AM1 replyview on HN

Yes, I found https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dicti... , which glosses "swie" as "silence".

Here the text says "I swied", so it has to be a verb, but the meaning "be silent" makes sense in the passage.

Something to think about in this exercise is that the shortness of the passages adds difficulty.

Consider section 1200, where a verb with the root ner is used. It's given so much focus and contextual elaboration that you can easily tell what it means, even though the word is unfamiliar.

If you read longer passages of Middle English, this same phenomenon will occur with more words.


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SilasXtoday at 12:45 AM

Wiktionary doesn't mention it for either word, but it looks to be cognate with German schweigen, "to be silent":

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/schweigen

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