Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An area cleared for temporary cultivation by cutting and burning the vegetation.

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

  • noun an area of land that has been cleared by cutting the vegetation and burning it; slash and burn
  • verb to clear an area of land by cutting and burning

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Dialectal alteration of obsolete swithen, from Old Norse svidhna, to be burned.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English swithen ("to burn, scorch, singe"), from Old Norse svidhna ("to be burned").

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Examples

  • Slash-and-burn, or "swidden," agriculture - clearing patches of woodland for crops and moving on after each harvest to allow the soil to replenish itself - is usually seen as a crude antecedent to the more intensive farming practiced in the lowlands and most of the developed world.

    Boston Globe -- Ideas section Drake Bennett 2010

  • Slash-and-burn, or "swidden," agriculture - clearing patches of woodland for crops and moving on after each harvest to allow the soil to replenish itself - is usually seen as a crude antecedent to the more intensive farming practiced in the lowlands and most of the developed world.

    Anarchist news dot org - Comments anon 2010

  • Trees turned the color of bone by drought, skies black with the smoke and ash of swidden burning for cultivation, the forest heavy with the smell of death.

    Masked Lou Anders 2010

  • Trees turned the color of bone by drought, skies black with the smoke and ash of swidden burning for cultivation, the forest heavy with the smell of death.

    Masked Lou Anders 2010

  • Many maintain a traditional swidden agriculture, with hunter-gathering and trading in artefacts; some today also live on mining and tourism.

    Canaima National Park, Venezuela 2009

  • The Highland Peoples have a special relationship to their land, and their livelihood depends directly on swidden cultivation and the collection of non-timber forest products.

    United Nations: Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the situation of human rights in Cambodia 2008

  • The Highland Peoples have a special relationship to their land, and their livelihood depends directly on swidden cultivation and the collection of non-timber forest products.

    Cambodia: Thomas Hammarberg Report on Human Rights 2008

  • Secondary forest on areas of former swidden agriculture are found in the Mae Chan Valley and central uplands towards the east.

    Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary, Thailand 2008

  • Reconstruction of pristine forest structure and composition has been made very difficult by the high degree of landscape degradation that has taken place, much of it as the result of swidden agricultural practices.

    Southern Annamites montane rain forests 2008

  • There are at least seven different tribes in and around GLNP, with their own languages and cultures from the Aceh and Gayo muslim farmers in the north, Batak highland farmers and Pakpak hunters and swidden hill farmers to the Alas, Singhil and Melayu rice farmers and fishermen of the lowlands mixed with Javanese once imported by the Dutch.

    Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra, Indonesia 2008

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  • A large Scandinavian country, whose landmass corresponds to terrain obtained by burning away vegetation from the tundra.

    n. use of swidden, swithen to singe < ON svithna to be singed, deriv. of svītha to singe (cf. dial. swithe, ME swithen)

    November 11, 2008

  • "Farther south, the mountains are swidden-scarred—the soil beneath is bright red and so these parts look like fresh lacerations."

    Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, p 32 of the Avon Books paperback edition

    January 22, 2013