swack

From Scots swack, from Middle English swac (“weak”), from Old English *swæc (found in derivative swæcehēow (“weakmindedness, nonsense”)), from Proto-Germanic *swakaz (“weak”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian swäk, West Frisian swak, Dutch zwak, German Low German swack, German schwach.

swack (comparative swacker, superlative swackest)

1. (Scotland) Lithe; nimble.
   • 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song, Polygon 2006 (A Scots Quair), p. 37:

     it came the turn of a brave young childe with a red head and the swackest legs you ever saw, […] and as soon as he began the drill you saw he'd carry off the prize.

• gracile, svelte, willowy; see also Thesaurus:slender and Thesaurus:flexible

UK c. 1860s. Used at Christ's Hospital School, Sussex.

swack (plural swacks)

1. (dated, Britain, school slang) A deception; a trick.

• See also Thesaurus:deception

• swack up, swack-up

• Farmer, John Stephen (1900) The Public School Word-Book‎, London: Hirshfeld Brothers, page 240
• Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 8th edition, 1984

• Wacks, cawks, wacks

swak +‎ -k

• IPA^(key): [swatsk]

swack m

1. diminutive of swak (brother-in-law)