swaip
English edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English swaipen (“to strike, scourge”), from Old Norse sveipa (“to sweep, stroke”) and/or Old English swāpan (“to sweep”); both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *swaipaną (“to sweep, swing, hurl, fling”).
Verb edit
swaip (third-person singular simple present swaips, present participle swaiping, simple past and past participle swaiped)
- (UK, dialect, obsolete) To walk proudly; to sweep along.
- 1842, Anthony Ganilh, Ambrosio de Letinez, page 143:
- Och, for his swaiping! That was a lucky job for him, —the ill-favored, foul-mouthed blackguard, heretic and villain thief!
- 1883, Welbore St. Clair Baddeley, Bedoueen Legends: And Other Poems, page 40:
- But Ayas swaiped aside among the crowd, Aflush with hate and burning discontent: And many murmured at him: for, said they, “Hamil at least doth surely mean us well!“
- 2013, Percarus:
- It is in good manners to swaip / But only when just celebrating / Without malice and arrogance / To show accomplishment once
Further reading edit
- Joseph Wright, editor (1905), “SWAIP”, in The English Dialect Dictionary: […], volumes V (R–S), London: Henry Frowde, […], publisher to the English Dialect Society, […]; New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, →OCLC, page 862, column 1.
- “swaip”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.