FAIN • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Fain

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adverb

Fain adv. With joy; gladly; with wold. "He would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat." "Fain Would I woo her, yet I dare not."

verb

Fain v. t. & v. i. To be glad; to wish or desire. (Obs.) "Whoso fair thing does fain to see."

adjective

Fain adj.

Well-pleased; glad; apt; wont; fond; inclined. "Men and birds are fain of climbing high." "To a busy man, temptation is fainto climb up together with his business."

Satisfied; contented; also, constrained. "The learned Castalio was fain to make trechers at Basle to keep himself from starving."

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Etymology of 'Fain'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Fain" Quotes from Famous Books

... for me Than the air may have of thee, Or the earth's warm woodlands girdling with green girth Thy secret sleepless burning life on earth, Or even the sea that once, being woman crowned And girt with fire and glory of anguish round, Thou wert so fain to seek to, fain to crave If she would hear thee and save And give thee comfort of thy great green grave? Because I have known thee always who thou art, Thou knowest, have known thee to thy heart's own heart, Nor ever have given light ear to storied song That did thy sweet name sweet unwitting ...

— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne--Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... influence the followers of individual branches of study. The Divinity, for example, must be an avowed believer; and as this, in the present day, is unhappily considered by many as a confession of weakness, he is fain to choose one of two ways of gilding the distasteful orthodox bolus. Some swallow it in a thin jelly of metaphysics; for it is even a credit to believe in God on the evidence of some crack-jaw philosopher, although it is a decided slur ...

— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... even and morn Speak no vain things of love or scorn, Fancies and passions miscreate By man in things dispassionate. Nor holds he fellowship forlorn With souls that pray and hope and hate, And doubt they had better not been born, And fain would lure or scare off fate And charm their doomsman from their doom And make fear ...

— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... to an eternal dwelling constructed after the plan which I have here described with its successive modifications; but the poorer folk were fain to do without those things which were the necessities of the wealthier dead. They were buried wherever it was cheapest—in old tombs which had been ransacked and abandoned; in the natural clefts of the rock; ...

— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero

... Sue only made Jude the more miserable that he was unable to woo her, and he left the cottage of his aunt that day with a heavy heart. He would fain have glanced into the school to see the room in which Sue's little figure had so glorified itself; but he checked ...

— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

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