English
swank
Swank may come from Proto-Germanic *swankijaną ‘to cause to sway, swing’.
- Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*swankijaną‘to cause to sway, swing’uncertain
- Englishearliest quotation 1925swank
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*swankijaną‘to cause to sway, swing’uncertain
- Englishearliest quotation 1925swank
Earliest quotation: 1925, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, New York: “Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes…”
The story
From dialectal swank (‘to strut, behave ostentatiously’), perhaps from an unrecorded Old English root, derived from Proto-Germanic *swankijaną (‘to cause to sway, swing’) or from Proto-Germanic *swankaz (‘lithe, bendsome, slender’), related to the Scots swank and the Middle High German swanken, modern German schwanken (‘to sway’).
Linked words
through Proto-Germanic *swinganą ‘to swing’
Today it means
adj Fashionably elegant, posh.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Proto-Germanic *swankijaną / swank