word of the day: swink
context:
Swink how we may, evenings or early morn,
Our garden crops bring only a bare return.
— lines from a poem by Fan Ch’eng-ta, translated by Gerald Bullett
definition (Collins): labor; toil
While one unfamiliar with the word can figure out a working definition from the context, I do wonder about translators who use such unfamiliar terms in the destination language.
source:
Anthology of Chinese Literature: from early times to the fourteenth century
edited by Cyril Birch
1965. Grove Press, New York
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