swidden
Valid in Scrabble
- Scrabble points
- 12
- Words With Friends
- 13
- Letters
- 7
Definition of swidden
2 senses · 2 parts of speech · etymology included
noun
-
An area of land that has been cleared by cutting the vegetation and burning it; slash and burn.
“Kamiali Village is a community of swidden horticulturists and fishers lying 80 kilometers in a south-southeasterly direction along the coast from the City of Lae, Papua New Guinea.”
“These facts reinforced the view that the Maya drew their basic sustenance from corn, most of it grown on slash-and-burn plots known as swiddens.”
“‘Swidden’ has entered anthropological jargon, denoting not only a practice widespread in non-state societies, but also a problem.”
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noun
-
An area of land that has been cleared by cutting the vegetation and burning it; slash and burn.
“Kamiali Village is a community of swidden horticulturists and fishers lying 80 kilometers in a south-southeasterly direction along the coast from the City of Lae, Papua New Guinea.”
“These facts reinforced the view that the Maya drew their basic sustenance from corn, most of it grown on slash-and-burn plots known as swiddens.”
“‘Swidden’ has entered anthropological jargon, denoting not only a practice widespread in non-state societies, but also a problem.”
verb
-
To clear an area of land by cutting and burning.
“The reason, Scott says, is that swiddening provides a freedom that fixed agriculture does not.”
Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.
Etymology
Possibly from a dialectal form *swiden of Middle English swithen, past participle of Middle English swithen (“to burn, scorch, singe”), from Old Norse svíða (“to singe, burn”). Compare also Old…
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Possibly from a dialectal form *swiden of Middle English swithen, past participle of Middle English swithen (“to burn, scorch, singe”), from Old Norse svíða (“to singe, burn”). Compare also Old Norse sviðinn (“burnt, singed”, past participle). Alternatively, from Old Norse sviðna (“to be burned”) or Old High German swedan (“to be burned”). Either way, probably ultimately from Proto-Germanic *swīþaną. First attested in 1868. If their respective theories align, then a distant cognate of German Schwyz, hence Swiss.
Words you can make from swidden
76 playable · top: DWINED (11 pts)
Best play dwined 11 points6-letter words
3 words5-letter words
16 words4-letter words
25 words3-letter words
20 words2-letter words
11 wordsHooks
1 extension · 1 back
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