Zounds is nothing less than the last word in my English-Italian dictionary (Cassell's), followed only by Zulu and Zurich.
The meaning is something like good gracious and I don't have the etymology
Zounds
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- Grand Panjandrum
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Re: Zounds
I remember it's said to be a truncation of the archaic expression "by God's wounds!" -which would also mean its vowels have shifted since then*.Zounds is nothing less than the last word in my English-Italian dictionary (Cassell's), followed only by Zulu and Zurich.
The meaning is something like good gracious and I don't have the etymology
*- edit upon further review: Something in the cobwebs of my memory suggests that it's the vowels of wounds that has shifted, and that zounds retains the original. I'm not sure. I'm surmising that the 'ow' sound is more Germanic and the 'oo' more French. Anyone?
Stop! Murder us not, tonsured rumpots! Knife no one, fink!
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