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forswear

/fə(ɹ)ˈswɛə(ɹ)/verb

forswear is a verb meaning “To renounce or deny something, especially under oath” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-O-R-S-W-E-A-R and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 19 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does forswear mean?

verb

  1. 1

    To renounce or deny something, especially under oath.

    We forswear allegiance and support for the Economic Freedom Fighters.

  2. 2

    To commit perjury; to break an oath.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce forswear?

  • /fə(ɹ)ˈswɛə(ɹ)/
  • /fɔː(ɹ)ˈswɛə(ɹ)/

Forswear has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-forswear.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of forswear

  • forswears present, singular, he/she/it
  • forswearing participle, present
  • forswore past
  • forsworn participle, past
  • foreswear

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is forswear?

Forswear appears about once in every 19 million words in written English, the 130,282nd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Forswear in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchnier, démentir, abjurer (to renounce or deny something, especially under…), parjurer (to commit perjury)
Germanabschwören, entschieden bestreiten, strikt ablehnen, verzichten (to renounce or deny something, especially under…), Meineid begehen (to commit perjury)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does forswear come from?

From Middle English forsweren, from Old English forswerian (“to swear falsely”). Cognate with Old Saxon farswerian, Old High German farsweren, German verschwören. More at for- + swear.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).