swarve
English edit
Etymology edit
See swerve.
Pronunciation edit
Verb edit
swarve (third-person singular simple present swarves, present participle swarving, simple past and past participle swarved)
- (UK, Scotland, dialect, obsolete) To swerve.
- 1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […] (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: […] Society of Stationers, […] Hibernia Press, […] [b]y John Morrison, 1809, →OCLC:
- I holde it meet that there were onelye sewerties taken of them , and one bounde for another , wherbye , if anye shall swarve , his sewerties shall for safegarde of ther bandes bringe hyme in , or seeke to serve upon him
- (UK, dialect, obsolete) To climb.
- 1571, Edwards, Damon and Pythias:
- Feede your eyes (quod you) the reason from my wisdom swarveth, / I stared on you both, and yet my belly starveth.
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 The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.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 “swarve”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)