Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A dream.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A vision seen in sleep; a dream.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun archaic A dream.
  • noun archaic A vision.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, from Old English swefn ("sleep, dream, vision"), from Proto-Germanic *swifnan, *swifnaz (“sleep”), from Proto-Indo-European *swépnos, *súpnos (“dream”), from Proto-Indo-European *swep- (“to sleep”). Cognate with Dutch suf ("drowsy"), Middle High German swēb ("sleep"), Danish søvn ("sleep"), Latin somnus ("sleep, slumber, drowsiness"), Sanskrit स्वप्न (svápna), Ancient Greek ὕπνος (hupnos).

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Examples

Comments

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  • "I am so ful of joye and of solas,

    That I diffye bothe sweven and dreem."

    Geoffrey Chaucer,

    The Canterbury Tales: The Nun's Priest's Tale, lines 3170-3171

    March 30, 2007

  • Sweven may mean sleep or a vision seen in sleep, a dream. — The Orthoepist

    June 9, 2010