The only use of this word I have found was in Howard’s unsold, The Island of Pirate’s Doom, in the Black Vulmea’s Revenge anthology. This was a common enough exclamation in the early 1700s for it to appear in the journal of a kidnapped boy. This word is as old as the English language we speak, as it was used by Shakespeare. The use of it this one time by Howard points to his dedication to authentic word finding when doing a period piece and his discipline in resisting the temptation to overuse it.
Zounds is a slurred contraction of the oath "God's wounds"; like "jeeze" for Jesus, with no penalty for blasphemy involved. I've relocated to Bolivia, it reminds me of
Bavaria, I'm closer to the few comrades left from the old einsatzgruppen. What fun we had!
-SS Sam
1. zounds
[zoundz]
EXCLAMATION
1. archaic
humorous
expressing surprise or indignation.
[zoundz] /zaʊndz/
Spell Syllables
Word Origin
interjection, Archaic.
1.
(used as a mild oath.)
Origin of zounds: variant of 'swounds,' which may have its origin as a reference to the shock of the wounded. Swounds was commonly used in the 1500s, an exceedingly violent period in urban England when many English sea captains doubled as pirates, preying on the ships of other nations.
