swad

See also: swąd

English

Alternative forms

• swod

Etymology

Related to swaddle?

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /swɒd/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒd

Noun

swad (plural swads)

1. A bunch, clump, mass
   • 1895 October, Stephen Crane, chapter X, in The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 102:

     " […] Ye'd oughta see th' swad a' chil'ren I've got, an' all like that."

2. (obsolete, slang) A crowd; a group of people.
3. (obsolete) A boor, lout.
   • 1591, unknown author, The Troublesome Reign of King John, scene 2:

     Sham’st thou not coistrel, loathsome dunghill swad.

   • 1633 (first performance), Ben Jonson, “A Tale of a Tub. A Comedy […]”, in The Works of Beniamin Jonson, […] (Third Folio), London: […] Thomas Hodgkin, for H[enry] Herringman, E. Brewster, T. Bassett, R[ichard] Chiswell, M. Wotton, G. Conyers, published 1692, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     There was one busy fellow was their leader, / A blunt, squat swad, but lower than yourself.

   • 1588, Robert Greene, Perimedes:

     Country swains, and silly swads.

4. (mining) A thin layer of refuse at the bottom of a seam.
5. (UK, dialect, obsolete, Northern) A cod, or pod, as of beans or peas.
   • 1656, Thomas Blount, Glossographia:

     Swad, in the north, is a peascod shell — thence used for an empty, shallow-headed fellow.

Synonyms

• (bunch, clump): bunch, clump, mass

References

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “swad”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Further reading

• WordNet 3.0 (2006, Princeton University); “swad”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.

Anagrams

• AWDS, AWDs, DAWs, Daws, WASD, daws, wads

Middle English

Noun

swad

1. Alternative form of swathe (“swath”)