trumpeter swan

Cygnus buccinator
Cygnus buccinator#Translingual

The largest North American swan, Cygnus buccinator; they have white plumage with a long neck, a short black bill.


pen

From Middle English penne, from Anglo-Norman penne, from Old French penne, from Latin penna (“feather”), from Proto-Indo-European *péth₂r̥ ~ pth₂én- (“feather, wing”), from *peth₂- (“to rush, fly”) (from which petition). Proto-Indo-European base also root of *petra-, from which Ancient Greek πτερόν (pterón, “wing”) (whence pterodactyl), Sanskrit पत्रम् (patram, “wing, feather”), Old Church Slavonic перо (pero, “pen”), Old Norse fjǫðr, Old English feðer (Modern English feather); note the /p/ → /f/ Germanic sound change.
Doublet of panne, penna, and pinna. See feather and πέτομαι (pétomai) for more.

cog

you don't dip your pen in the company inkwell

you don't dip your pen in the company's ink

a dab pen; a wax pen

Short for vapor pen (“electronic cigarette”).


swan

From Middle English swan, from Old English swan, from Proto-West Germanic *swan, from Proto-Germanic *swanaz (“swan”, literally “the singing bird”), from Proto-Indo-European *swonh₂-/*swenh₂- (“to sing, make sound”).
Cognate with West Frisian swan, Low German Swaan, swan, Dutch zwaan, German Schwan, Danish svane, Norwegian svane, Swedish svan. Related also to Old English ġeswin (“melody, song”), Old English swinsian (“to make melody”).
Further cognates include (possibly) Russian звон (zvon, “ring, chime”); Latin sonus (“sound”), Sanskrit स्वन् (svan, “sound”).
Doublet of sound.

inh

Any of various species of large, long-necked waterfowl, of genus Cygnus (bird family: Anatidae), most of which have white plumage.


trumpeter

From trumpet + -er (occupational suffix) or + -er (agent noun suffix).

The trumpeters' fate seems likely to get tangled with that of the mute swan. Currently there's enough habitat for both species, but that may change if trumpeters flourish and mutes aren't controlled.

1998, Bob Devine, National Geographic Society (U.S.), Alien invasion: America's battle with non-native animals and plants:

An American swan (Cygnus buccinator) with a very loud honk.


cygnet

From Middle English cignet, signet, from Anglo-Norman cignet, diminutive of Old French cigne (“swan”), from Latin cygnus, cycnus (“swan”), from Ancient Greek κύκνος (kúknos, “swan”).

I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,
And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings
His soul and body to their lasting rest.


cob

en-noun

cob (countable and uncountable, plural cobs)

Of uncertain origin. The word has many disparate senses, which are likely of diverse origin. The specifics of these origins have long been debated, as has the question of which senses arise from which origins. At least the swan sense originated in Middle English cobbe (“male swan; gang leader; bully”). Some other senses likely originated as a variant of cop (“head, top, peak, summit”). In other senses, the word may be related to cub, itself of obscure origin but possibly from Old Norse kobbi (“seal”). However, many alternative etymologies have been proposed to account for some or all senses of cob; various sources have related it, for example, to English cot (“cottage”), Welsh cob (“top, tuft”), or German Kübel (“large container”). All these etymologies are disputed, and the exact origins of cob cannot be known with any certainty.

inh

In all common streams, and private waters, when cygnets are taken up, the owner of the cob must chuse the first cygnet, and the pen the next, and so in order….

1664, John Witherings, “The Orders, Laws, and Ancient Customs of Swans”, in The Harleian Miscellany, volume VII, published 1810, page 292:

The cob waddled out onto the island and looked in the nest.

1970, E. B. White, The Trumpet of the Swan, HarperCollins, published 2000, →ISBN, page 22:

The cob will defend the nest and the eggs.

2008, Nicole Helget, Swans, Creative Education,, →ISBN, page 22:

svanasteggi

there is no special word in Faroese for cob in this sense

cygne mâle

there is no special word in French for cob in this sense

Schwanenmännchen (cf. Schwanen-, Männchen n)

cisne macho

there is no special word in Spanish for cob in this sense

svanhane

there is no special word in Swedish for cob in this sense

…he put his Hand in his Pocket and pull’d out ſome Gold, ſome Broadpieces and a Gold Cob….

1701, Daniel Mac-Cay, testimony in the trial of Patrick Hurly, transcribed in A Complete Collection of State-Trials, and Proceedings upon High-Treason, and Other Crimes and Misdemeanours, volume 5, 2nd edition (1730), page 404

They fancied, that he who sold a Stone of Wool for Two Cobs, callid 9s. when Cobs were raised would sell his Stone for a Cob and a half when called 9s.

1718, Observations on raising the value of money, page 4:

As this sum was greater than ever Swift had been master of at any one time before, he pushed over, without reckoning them, a good number of the siver cobs (for it was all in that specie) to the honest sailor, and desired he would accept them for his trouble.

1774, J. Hawkesworth, “An Account of the life of Dr. Swift”, in The Works of Jonathan Swift, page xx:

He then drew out a large leathern bag, and poured out the contents, which were ſilver cobs, upon the table.

1784, Thomas Sheridan, The Life of the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick’s, Dublin, volume I, pages 7–8:

Our fituation every day appears more alarming, there being a scarcity of almost every thing in the garrison — fire-wood a cob per hundred; flour five rials per pound; no fresh meat except an old cow, or worn-out ox, (only one perhaps killed in a month) which is sold at four and a half and five rials per pound; fowls twenty to twenty-four rials each; a goose ten dollars; a turkey twenty dollars; eggs a cob the dozen; and every other necessary in proporition.

1793, Samuel Ancell, A circumstantial journal of the blockade and siege of Gibraltar, page 24:

Several of the artillery officers, the Welch fusileers, and a few navy officers, spent the evening at a tavern, well known by the name of Miss Loftus's; on payment of our reckoning, Captain Wilcox was deficient a cob (value about four shillings and ninepence) the payment of which, was offered to him by a Mr. Funston, a lieutenant fireworker;

1795, Mark Moore, The Memoirs and Adventures of Mark Moore Late an Officer in the British Navy, page 49:

It’s absolutely possible to find an affordable ($20-$35) low to average circulated Spanish silver cob dated around or before 1692, especially if you’re willing to settle for the smaller half real or one real cobs.

2006, Todd Cook, The Lost Coins of Early Americans: Still A Secret!, Xulon Press,, →ISBN, page 90:

Cobs were usually irregularly shaped. They were a means to account for a specific amount of silver in a coin that could be used for commerce.

2008, Alvin Rabushka, Taxation in Colonial America, Princeton University Press,, →ISBN, page 154:

Any of the gold and silver coins that were minted in the Spanish Empire and valued in reales or escudos, such as the piece of eight—especially those which were crudely struck and irregularly shaped.


hooper

Cygnus cygnus
Cygnus cygnus#Translingual

(ornithology) The European whistling, or wild, swan (Cygnus cygnus).


lamentation

en-noun

lamentation (countable and uncountable, plural lamentations)

Recorded since 1375, from Latin lāmentātiō (“wailing, moaning, weeping”), from the deponent verb lāmentor, from lāmentum (“wail; wailing”), itself from a Proto-Indo-European *leh₂- (“to howl”), presumed ultimately imitative. Replaced Old English cwiþan. Lament is a 16th-century back-formation.

der

Bernhard Strigel
descent from the Cross
lamentation of Christ


swanherd

A person who tends or herds swans; a keeper of swans.

Schwanenwärter

person who tends, herds, takes care of swans


mute swan

So called because it is not very vocal (though not entirely mute).

A species of white plumaged swan, Cygnus olor, having a distinctive orange bill with a black tip, native to Eurasia and widely introduced elsewhere as an ornamental waterbird.


swan song

Calque of German Schwanenlied(from Schwan + Lied) or Schwanengesang; from the belief that the mute swan sings before dying.

Yet, on the whole, our good Saint-Pierre is musical, poetical though most morbid: we will call his Book the swan-song of old dying France.

1837, Thomas Carlyle, chapter VIII, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume I (The Bastille), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, book II (The Paper Age):

In no other way can be explained our sacrifices and martyrdoms. For no other reason did Rudolph Mendenhall flame out his soul for the Cause and sing his wild swan-song that last night of life.

1908 February 19, Jack London, The Iron Heel, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC:

"A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"[…]—a pretentious volume which Mark Twain really considered his last. "It's my swan-song, my retirement from literature permanently," he wrote Howells, though certainly he was young, fifty-four, to have reached this conclusion.

1916, Albert Bigelow Paine, The Boys' Life of Mark Twain:

Je ne parle pas français. That was her swan song for me.

1918 February (date written), Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “Je ne parle pas français”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company, published 1920, →OCLC, page 114:

[…]McCartney III could mark the end of his recording career. For a musician as continually prolific as McCartney (this is his 18th solo record), that seems unlikely. But if it is indeed a swan song, McCartney III will stand as a proper coda for the singer-songwriter we’ve been listening to for fifty-odd years: sentimental yet strong, a bit wistful, but as always, looking ahead.

2020 November 9, Gwen Ihnat, “With McCartney III, Paul McCartney offers lessons from a legendary life”, in The A.V. Club:

Merkel’s political and scientific sides slug it out in swan song presser [title]

2021 July 22, Philip Oltermann, “Merkel’s political and scientific sides slug it out in swan song presser”, in The Guardian:

[S]pielberg was keen to stress that The Fabelmans is not a full stop: “It is not because I decided to retire, and this is my swan song, don’t believe that.”

2022 October 22, Wendy Ide, quoting Steven Spielberg, “‘It’s a way to bring my mum and dad back’: Steven Spielberg on the new wave of cine-memoirs”, in The Guardian:

(idiomatic) A final performance or accomplishment, especially one before retirement.


swansdown

en-noun

swansdown (usually uncountable, plural swansdowns)

Oh, to be free of Princes' at one-thirty, of being the tiny kitten in the swansdown basket, of being the Arabian, and the grave, delighted child and the little wild creature. . . .

1920, Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “Revelations”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company, published 1920, →OCLC, pages 266–267:


cygnine

en-adj

cygnine (comparative more cygnine, superlative most cygnine)

more cygnine (comparative)
most cygnine (superlative)

From Latin cygnus (“swan”), with English -ine.

The genus Choristopus, Eyton, apparently Anserine rather than Cygnine, is said to possess this character […]

1869, Elliott Coues, On the Classification of Water Birds, Merrihew & Son, published 1870, page 26:

(zoology) Being of the genus Cygnus (swan), within subfamily Anserinae of the family Anatidae, though sometimes considered a distinct subfamily, Cygninae.

But, in the cutting of it, if thou dost shed / One drop of cygnine blood, thy clumsiness...

1848, Edmund Saul Dixon, Ornamental and Domestic Poultry, page 20:

On the whole, then, the bones of the pectoral arch in Dendrocygna — if we may judge from the two North American species of the genus — are more anatine than they are either anserine or cygnine.

1915, Zoologische Jahrbücher: Abteilung für Systematik, Geographie und […] , volume 38, page 44:

1949, G. L. Hendrickson, Classical Philology, Vol. 44, No. 1, page 30 alternate
...scarcely a translator can be found who conveys any other impression than that Horace becomes a swan before our eyes. One almost wonders in what cygnine dialect the rest of the poem was spoken.

Of, concerning, pertaining to, resembling, or having the characteristics of a swan or swans.


cygnine

From the Swan River, in Western Australia where the toxic plants were discovered.

(dated) An alkaloid from plants of genus Gastrolobium, found in Australia, principally Western Australia, highly toxic to introduced animals.


black swan

From Middle English blak swan, calqued from a Latin quotation from Satire VI (written late 1st century – early 2nd century B.C.E.) of the Roman poet Juvenal: “Rara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygno [a bird as rare upon the earth as a black swan]!”. Equivalent to black + swan.
Sense 2.1 (“something believed impossible or not to exist”) is from the fact that all swans were thought to have white plumage until black swans were discovered in Australia in the 17th century by Dutch explorers. Sense 2.2 (“rare and hard-to-predict event”) was popularized by the Lebanese-American author Nassim Nicholas Taleb (born 1960) in his book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007): see the quotation.

nb...

a Dissertation on the Life and Writings of Juvenal; a Treatise on Latin Versification; and an Index, Historical, Geographical, Explanatory, and Referential. 􂀿...􂁀 A New Edition, Critically Revised, Improved, and Linearly Arranged, from the Original Version of the Rev. John Stirling, D.D.

Paternoster Row; Whittaker and Co. Ave Maria Lane; and Simpkin and Marshall, Stationers’ Hall Court.

Mankind were wrong, it seems, in concluding that all swans were white: are we also wrong, when we conclude that all men's heads grow above their shoulders, and never below, in spite of the conflicting testimony of the naturalist Pliny? As there were black swans, though civilised people had existed for three thousand years on the earth without meeting with them, may there not also be "men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders," notwithstanding a rather less perfect unanimity of negative testimony from all observers? Most persons would answer No; it was more credible that a bird should vary in its colour, than that man should vary in the relative position of his principal organs.

1843, John Stuart Mill, “Of the Ground of Induction”, in A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence, and the Methods of Scientific Investigation. […], volume I, London: John W[illiam] Parker, […], →OCLC, § 3, page 379:

If you tell me that there is or that there is not a black swan or a white raven, I want to know where you mean; and that you can only show me,—no description will answer the purpose.

1884 summer, Charles Sanders Peirce, “On the Algebra of Logic (Second Paper) [Item 22, MS 508]”, in Christian J. W. Kloesel [et al.], editors, Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, volumes 5 (1884–1886), Bloomington; Indianapolis, Ind.: Indiana University Press, published 1993, →ISBN, page 111:

The original propounder of 'all swans are white' presumably based it on a sample of hundreds or thousands; but the verifications before the Australian black swan was discovered must have run into millions

1961, Harold Jeffreys, “Estimation Problems”, in Theory of Probability (Oxford Classic Texts in the Physical Sciences), 3rd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, published 2003, →ISBN, paragraph 3.21, page 132:

This concept of "observation" is not like that of seeing a black swan, to mention a famous classical example. New particles leave signatures in the detector that on an event by event basis cannot be distinguished by other processes (background).

1999, G. D’Agostini, “Bayesian Reasoning versus Conventional Statistics in High Energy Physics”, in Wolfgang von der Linden, Volker Dose, Rainer Fischer, Roland Preuss, editors, Maximum Entropy and Bayesian Methods: Garching, Germany 1998: Proceedings of the 18th International Workshop on Maximum Entropy and Bayesian Methods of Statistical Analysis (Fundamental Theories of Physic; 105), Dordrecht, South Holland: Springer Science+Business Media, →DOI, →ISBN, footnote 19, page 166:

Cygnus atratus
Cygnus atratus#Translingual

Cygnus atratus, a swan with black plumage and a red bill which is endemic to Australia.

黒鳥

こくちょう, コクチョウ, kokuchō


tundra swan

Still, he describes [...] the yellow-breasted chats and tundra swans that would appear in his yard, looking for seed.

2020, Raven Leilani, Luster, Picador (2021), page 4:


Bewick's swan

Named after the engraver Thomas Bewick, who specialised in illustrations of birds and animals.

Cygnus columbianus
Cygnus columbianus#Translingual

A small swan, Cygnus columbianus, of the family Anatidae.


black-necked swan

en-noun

black-necked swan (plural black-necked swans)

Cygnus melancoryphus
Cygnus melancoryphus#Translingual

The only South American species of swan, Cygnus melancoryphus.


whooper swan

The thought of life with him filled her with exultation. She could leap up, like the whooper swan, spread her silver wings, and shout her song of rapture and of defiance, like a trumpet.

1880, Sabine Baring-Gould, chapter 7, in Mehalah: A Story of the Salt Marshes, London: Smith, Elder & Co., published 1884, page 103:

By mid-morning they are back with huge catches: birds with their necks twisted, slung from poles row upon row by their feet, or crammed alive into wooden cages, screaming with outrage, trampling each other, with sometimes a great silent whooper swan crouched in their midst.

1980, J. M. Coetzee, chapter 3, in Waiting for the Barbarians, London: Secker & Warburg, pages 78–79:

A species of swan, Cygnus cygnus, of the taxonomic family Anatidae.


swanskin

swanskin (countable and uncountable, plural swanskins)

The skin of a swan with the down or feathers on.

A type of brushed flannel cotton twill fabric.


swan upping

swan upping (countable and uncountable, plural swan uppings)

An annual swan census in Britain in which mute swans on the River Thames are rounded up, caught, marked, and released.


swanling

From swan + -ling, formed by analogy with duckling, gosling, etc. Compare German Schwänlein.

Suddenly I feel myself become small as a swanling, tucked into the swan's feathers.

2004, Pauline Somers, Dreams Within Dreams:

Slim ran over to the pond and unleashed the excited swanlings. They followed Moose and Slim to a quiet backwash of the river and glided gracefully into the water. Moose sat down on a little hillock and listened to Slim talking to the swanlings.

2007, Hubert Schuurman, People of the Swan:

The narrative concerns a female duck who hatches four dark ducklings, and when the fifth turns out to be a white “swanling,” the father duck more or less accuses his wife of adultery.

Bruno Bettelheim What this is really about is how you and your own dear swanling can rest securely in the feeling of belonging together when you experience daily life differently because others treat you differently.

2011, Gail Steinberg, Beth Hall, Inside Transracial Adoption:

So close, swanling, do not hesitate. Her eyes went to the sun hanging between night and day and then to Wulfsun. I cannot leave him to such a fate. Without me, he is a dead man.

2015, Betina Lindsey, Swan Bride: The Swan Maiden Trilogy - Book One:


elke

(obsolete) The European wild, whistling, or common swan (Cygnus cygnus, syn. Cygnus ferus).


cobswan

From cob (“one who is eminent or great”) + swan.

compound

I'am not taken / With a Cob-Swan, or a high-mounting Bull / As fooliſh Leda and Europa were.

1611, Ben[jamin] Jonson, Catiline His Conspiracy, London: […] [William Stansby?] for Walter Burre, →OCLC, Act II:

[T]here's plenty hint / Your pinions have received of late a shock— / Out-soar them, cobswan of the silver flock!

1840 March, Robert Browning, “Book the Second”, in Sordello, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 83:


swanny

From “(I) shall warrant ye”; later re-interpreted as a minced oath of swear. Compare swan.

I swanny if I ever felt so in my life ! I was so anxious about that long letter that I sent to them to get printed for you, that I was dreadful loth to go in, and eenamost made up my mind to turn about and make tracks for the sloop agin !

1843, Ann Sophia Stephens, High Life in New York, page 7:

I swanny! but that was a warm time for me, Miss—it sure was. There was that ol' she b'ar with her mouth as wide open as a church door or, so it looked to Jerry Todd.

1913, Alice B. Emerson, Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp, Start Classics, →ISBN:

Here I was, with Miss Marie looking at me, expecting me to say what she wanted me to say, and I knew the Good Lord was looking down on me, too, expecting me to tell the truth. I swanny, I didn't know what to do.

2004, Ann Roscopf Allen, A Serpent Cherished, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 172:

Alternative form of swan (“declare, swear”)


swanmark

None may have a Swanmark, unless it be by Grant of the King

(UK) A mark of ownership cut on the bill of a swan.


New Zealand swan

en-noun

New Zealand swan (plural New Zealand swans)

Cygnus atratus sumnerensis, an extinct swan from the Chatham Islands and the South Island of New Zealand.


swaness

One thing we will say for the swaness, or she-swan. She makes a lovely mother! She and the cat are our ideal earthly types of the maternal relation. The mere human mother is an awkward thing alongside either of these creatures. To see the swan with her gray cygnets sailing about is not much more in itself than if she were a goose and goslings; but when she takes a mind to give the little things a ride, then we see riding pic-a-back “elevated,” as the newspapers say of circus-riding, “to the rank of a Fine Art.”

1873, “Central Park”, in Scribner’s Monthly, an Illustrated Magazine for the People, volume VI, New York, N.Y.: Scribner & Co., page 685, column 2:

On Thursday we go down to Celbridge, where with memories of Swift and the wretched and foolish Vanessa and in company with a beautiful swan and swaness, which bring their babies to the lawn to be admired and duly fed, I am going to rest and recuperate for the next five weeks and try to remember out of this awful time only the kindness and sympathy that has been shown to us by so many Irish friends.

1916, Mrs. Hamilton Norway [i.e., Mary Louisa Norway], The Sinn Fein Rebellion as They Saw It, pages 98–99:

It was in June, 1922, while Bill was making his toilet that there came out of the west, and landed nearby, one of the most beautiful swanesses that you ever saw. From her dress and appearance, she was some high born lady. Bill was rather surprised when he discovered the visitor, and naturally, he called on her and displayed courtesy that only a swan can show.

1923 May 17, John Thomson, “Bard of Avon Pens Love Letter For Disconsolate Bachelor Swan: Mayor Thomson Seeks Aid Aid of Commissioner Pittenger For Old Bill, Badly Beaten After Attempt to Steal One of Bamford’s Harem Beauties”, in Asbury Park Evening Press, thirty-seventh year, number 117, Asbury Park, N.J., page 9, column 2:

To the four very willing swanesses of Egypt, Mass., Gloomy Gus, the wan swan from California, is just a pain in the neck. And a pain in a swan’s neck is a long, long pain. Trouble is: Gus hasn’t made passes at any of the lasses. Grieving ever since the death of his mate, with whom he used to navigate Forest Lawn’s lake, Gus was flown east this week in hopes that he would find a new mate in one of four maiden swans at the Chase Bird farm in Egypt, near Boston.

1947 April 19, “Non-Necking Swan Swain Pain In Neck of Unpecked Swanees”, in Valley Times, volume XI, number 94, North Hollywood, Calif., page 2, column 5:

“[…]You were bored anyway and you started drinking and then there were the women. All those ‘we’re just good friends’ women.” “Oh, for God’s sake, Deborah, stuff like that, it’s not important. Can’t you understand? What’s a man supposed to be? Some goddamn swan that mates once for life?” “A lot of men do and you can bet it’s what the swaness prefers.”

1976, Ilka Chase, Dear Intruder, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., page 5: