swan

UK: 'swan': /ˈswɒn/; 'Swan': /swɒn/ US: /swɑn/ ,(swon)

WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2025

swan¹ /swɑn/   n. [countable]

1. Birds a large bird living by water, of the goose family, having a long, slender neck and usually pure-white feathers.

WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2025

swan¹  (swon), n. 

1. Birds any of several large, stately aquatic birds of the subfamily Anserinae, having a long, slender neck and usually pure-white plumage in the adult. Cf. mute swan, trumpeter swan, whistling swan, whooper swan. 
2. a person or thing of unusual beauty, excellence, purity, or the like.
3. [Literary.] a person who sings sweetly or a poet.
4. Astronomy (cap.) the constellation Cygnus.

• bef. 900; Middle English, Old English; cognate with German Schwan, Old Norse svanr

swan′like′, adj. 

swan²  (swon), v.i. 

1. Dialect Terms [Midland and Southern U.S. Older Use.] to swear or declare (used with I):
   Well, I swan, I never expected to see you here!

• probably continuing dialect, dialectal (north, northern England) I s'wan, shortening of I shall warrant 1775–85, American.

Swan  (swon), n. 

1. Biographical Sir Joseph Wilson, 1828–1914, British chemist, electrical engineer, and inventor.

Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::

swan / swɒn/ noun

1. any large aquatic bird of the genera Cygnus and Coscoroba, having a long neck and usually a white plumage: family Anatidae, order Anseriformes
2. a poet
3. (capital when part of a title or epithet): the Swan of Avon (Shakespeare)

verb (swans, swanning, swanned)

1. (intr; usually followed by around or about) to wander idly

Etymology: Old English; related to Old Norse svanr, Middle Low German swōn

ˈswanˌlike adjective

Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::

Swan / swɒn/ noun

1. a river in SW Western Australia, rising as the Avon northeast of Narrogin and flowing northwest and west to the Indian Ocean below Perth. Length: about 240 km (150 miles)

Swan / swɒn/ noun

1. Sir Joseph Wilson. 1828–1914, English physicist and chemist, who developed the incandescent electric light (1880) independently of Edison