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Swathe   Listen
verb
Swathe  v. t.  (past & past part. swathed; pres. part. swathing)  To bind with a swathe, band, bandage, or rollers. "Their children are never swathed or bound about with any thing when they are first born."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Swathe" Quotes from Famous Books



... surroundings. Then he sat up in bed, blinking his eyes open wider. The room was a large one with two beds in it. He and Kent had slept in one, and Old Tilly in the other. It was just before sunrise, and in the east a wide swathe of pink was banding the sky. Outside the window, a crowd of little birds were tuning ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... tell you? Then I must have overlooked it. Iss, iss, the French be landed at Talland Cove, and murderin' as they come! And the Troy lads be cut down like a swathe o' grass; and I, only I, escaped to carry the news. And you call this a Millenyum, I suppose?" he wound up ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... reembody[obs3]; roll into one. attach, fix, affix, saddle on, fasten, bind, secure, clinch, twist, make fast &c. adj.; tie, pinion, string, strap, sew, lace, tat, stitch, tack, knit, button, buckle, hitch, lash, truss, bandage, braid, splice, swathe, gird, tether, moor, picket, harness, chain; fetter &c. (restrain) 751; lock, latch, belay, brace, hook, grapple, leash, couple, accouple[obs3], link, yoke, bracket; marry &c. (wed) 903; bridge over, span. braze; pin, nail, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... it made the swathe better there than anywhere else," they reply. "Witless now is Njal," says Hallgerda, "though he knows how ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders

... brutalise by choice His nature, and, though capable of arts By which the world might profit and himself, Self-banished from society, prefer Such squalid sloth to honourable toil. Yet even these, though feigning sickness oft They swathe the forehead, drag the limping limb, And vex their flesh with artificial sores, Can change their whine into a mirthful note When safe occasion offers, and with dance, And music of the bladder and the bag, Beguile their woes, and make the woods resound. Such health and gaiety of heart enjoy ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... made place For marketmen glad to pitch basket down, Dip a broad melon-leaf that holds the wet, And whisk their faded fresh. And on I read Presently, though my path grew perilous Between the outspread straw-work, piles of plait Soon to be flapping, each o'er two black eyes And swathe of Tuscan hair, on festas fine: Through fire-irons, tribes of tongs, shovels in sheaves, Skeleton bedsteads, wardrobe-drawers agape, Rows of tall slim brass lamps with dangling gear,— And worse, cast clothes a-sweetening in ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... the limb comes out of the water alarmingly swollen, good and skilful bandaging will do excellent work. If you have at hand an old shirt, or some such thing, tear it into strips about three inches wide, till you have as much material as will swathe the whole limb from behind the toes up to the top of the thigh. This need not be all in one piece, but only so that you may apply it in such a way as to bring a very gentle pressure on the whole surface of the injured limb. It is important that ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... Rare was shade on his face, as dismay in his heart; The brawl and the scuffle he deem'd a disgrace, But the hand to the brand was as ready to start. Who could grapple with him in firmness of limb And sureness of sinew? and—for the stout blow— 'Twas the scythe to the swathe in the meadows of death, Where numbers were levell'd as fast ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... carpenter is ill he asks the physician for a rough and ready cure; an emetic or a purge or a cautery or the knife,—these are his remedies. And if some one prescribes for him a course of dietetics, and tells him that he must swathe and swaddle his head, and all that sort of thing, he replies at once that he has no time to be ill, and that he sees no good in a life which is spent in nursing his disease to the neglect of his customary employment; and therefore bidding good-bye to this sort of ...
— The Republic • Plato

... once, and the silver-hafted sword bit deep, the gift of Phaeacian Euryalus long ago. The Guards also smote and thrust; it was for their lives they fought, and back rolled the tide of foes, leaving a swathe of dead. So a second time they came on, and a second time were ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang

... and give birth to their children and leave them there, while they themselves returned home. The Lord, who had sworn unto their ancestors to multiply them, sent one of His angels to wash the babes, anoint them, stretch their limbs, and swathe them. Then he would give them two smooth pebbles, from one of which they sucked milk, and from the other honey. And God caused the hair of the infants to grow down to their knees and serve them as a protecting garment, and then He ordered the earth ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... at the beginning of July, I came home from mowing about noon, or a little later, to fetch some cider for all of us, and to eat a morsel of bacon. For mowing was no joke that year, the summer being wonderfully wet (even for our wet country), and the swathe falling heavier over the scythe than ever I could remember it. We were drenched with rain almost every day; but the mowing must be done somehow; and we must trust ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... be of use, I know it—no skill, but steady nerves," although he had reckoned a leetle without his host here,—"And I can swathe a bandage too, although no ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... just what I was coming at. The evil in its broadest expanse is there. We look calmly on the external objects of the system without solving its internal grievances,—we build a right upon the ruins of ancient wrongs, and we swathe our thoughts with inconsistency that we may make the curse of a system invulnerable. It is not that we cannot do good under a bad system, but that we cannot ameliorate it, lest we weaken the foundation. And yet all this seems ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... promise, A thousand times have been lost for the lack Of just the help a watchful god might give; But which the best of fathers, best of mothers, Of friends, of lovers cannot quite supply. Powers, who swathe man's virtue up in weakness, Then plunge his delicate mind in hot desire, Preparing pleasure first and after shame To bandage round his eyes,—these gods are not The friends of men.' The Delphis of old days before me ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... by the road, by reason of the deep snow on either hand, which was like walls shutting us in, and leaving room for no more than eight men to go abreast. If the cannon were loaded with a ball, it must needs cut a swathe like a scythe from the first man to the last, and if it were loaded with small balls, all of us who were near the front must needs go down at once. The General asked counsel of us who were riding with him at the front what ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... crush with strength alone, The eyes that glared vindictive.—Fallen there, Vast wings upheaved me; from the Alpine peaks Whose avalanches swirl the valley mists And whelm the helpless cottage, to the crown Of Chimborazo, on whose changeless jewels The torrid rays recoil, with ne'er a cloud To swathe their blistered steps, I rested not, But preyed on all that ventured from the earth, An outlaw of the heavens.—But evermore Must death release me to the jungle shades; And there like Samson's grew my locks again In the old walks and ways, till ...
— Memories and Studies • William James

... with a seal of gold The scroll of a life unrolled; Swathe him deep in his purple stole; Ashes of diamonds, crystalled coal, Drops of gold ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... poets! men's conventions crust you round and swathe you mist-like, And the world's wheels grind your spirits down the dust ye overtrod: We stand sinlessly stark-naked in effulgence of the Christlight, And our polecat chokes not cherubs; and our ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... taken possession of the offices, &c., and were bringing the Hut once more into a habitable condition. Soon, too, a report was brought that the mowers, who had been brought in anticipation of their services being wanted, had cut a broad swathe to the ruins of the chapel, and the graves ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... time had uttered no complaint, though I saw the blood flowing down his side. The boatswain and Green had, with my help, bound up their wounds. I wanted Tom to let me assist him. "No," he said; "it's of no use. If you were to swathe me up, I could not pull. It will be time enough for that when we get round the headland." He was evidently getting weaker, and at last the boatswain persuaded him to lay in his oar, and try to stop the blood. The wounds were in his back and neck, inflicted by the savages as he fought his way ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... me swathe the clamorous tartan In lieu of trousers round my waist, Then they evoke the spirit of the Spartan Inherent in my simple taste; Inexorably I decline To drape the kilt ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various

... we decided to try a plan that was really no plan at all; that is to say, to seek more or less at random, till we consumed all our stores except just enough to take us home. Meanwhile, we would, each of us, every day, cut a sort of radiating swathe, working single-handed, from the cove entrance. Thus we would prospect as much of the country as possible in a sort of fan, both of us keeping our eyes open for a compass carved on a rock. In this way we might hope to cover ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne

... roadway which they were approaching whilst still speaking beyond the swingchains a horse, dragging a sweeper, paced on the paven ground, brushing a long swathe of mire up so that with the noise Bloom was not perfectly certain whether he had caught aright the allusion to sixtyfive guineas and John Bull. He inquired if it was John Bull the political celebrity of that ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... there entered to them a tall aged woman, with one swathe of a turban across her long level brows; and she had hard black eyes, and close lips and a square chin; and it was the mother of Ruark. She strode forward toward Bhanavar to greet her, and folded her legs before the damsel. Presently she said, 'Tell me thy ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the minor evils; it was in the tents, during the hours when we could do no work, that we suffered most. Rest was impossible. The mere touch of clothing was almost unbearable in the heat, but it was better to swathe the head in a fly-net and roll a blanket round the outlying portions of the body, than to strip to the buff and lie exposed to the attacks of ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett

... almost succeeding. True it is that their legs and arms were not all of one pattern, nor their hats put on their heads alike—any more than the heads on their shoulders were—neither did they swing together, as they would have done to a good swathe of grass; but for all that, and making due allowance for the necessity they were under of staring incessantly at the King, any man who understood them would have praised them wonderfully. And they went ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... gear-lever. With a chuckle and shudder the long, black machine sprang forward, and shot with a soft sigh from her powerful engines down the sloping gradient. The driver stooped and switched off his electric head-lights. Only a dim grey swathe cut through the black heath indicated the line of his road. From in front there came presently a confused puffing and rattling and clanging as the oncoming car breasted the slope. It coughed and spluttered on a powerful, ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... lancers there was a waltz; after the waltz a polka; and then a terrible thing happened; the music, which had been sounding regularly with five-minute pauses, stopped suddenly. The lady with the great dark eyes began to swathe her violin in silk, and the gentleman placed his horn carefully in its case. They were surrounded by couples imploring them in English, in French, in Spanish, of one more dance, one only; it was still early. But the old man at the piano merely exhibited his watch and shook ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... seated on three-legged stools in front of smoking caldrons of molten sealing-wax of a deep green hue, are coating the necks of other bottles by plunging them into the boiling fluid. When labelled and decorated with either wax or foil the bottles pass on to other women, who swathe them in pink tissue-paper and set them aside for the packers, by whom, after being deftly wrapped round with straw, they are consigned to baskets or cases, to secure which last no less than 10,000lbs. of nails are annually used. England and Russia are partial to gold foil, pink ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly

... glowing amber bead herself, all brown and gold, with rich red lights and gleams of yellow ... then just as she was going out she had her last and best inspiration of all. She suddenly went back into the room, and before the mirror tore off the swathe of cream lace she wore round her throat. The short thick column of her neck rose out of her golden blouse. She burned to her ears, but walked ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... afresh at this recurrence to her departure, and made no answer. He slashed along vigorously for two or three yards, cutting a wide swathe with his umbrella, and then his grievance appeared somewhat appeased, and he ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner

... freslige—seven-syllable lines in a quatrain, rhyming abab: a being trisyllabic, b dissyllabic rhymes. The stanza is obscure and probably corrupt; so far as it can be rendered at all, the literal translation is: "He healed the steed of Oengus / when he was in a swathe, in a cradle // there was given ... / from God ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous

... as a screen from prevailing winds represent the home of the hour and all that the word signifies and embodies. Many a one was laid to rest beneath its spreading branches, for it was the custom of the pre-white folk's days to swathe the dead in frail strips of bark, knees to chin, and place the stiffened corpse in a shallow pit in the humpy which had been in most recent occupation. If the dead during life had possessed exceptional qualities, burial rites would be ceremonious and prolonged. With tear and blood stained faces ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... mistaken, stamps every lineament of that well-known countenance. It is death's colour on the cheek; death's cold stiffness in the limbs; and no hand but his could so close those eyes and make rigid those lips. There is no swoon here! Swathe him then in the garments of the grave; make ready for the funeral; let him be buried for ever out of sight; follow him to the ancestral tomb, and let the other household dead be remembered, and the other sad processions from the home of the living to the home ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod

... discharge of urine continued to increase, and in five or six days the whole of the dropsical water passed off, without any disturbance to the stomach or bowels. As the distension of the belly had been very great, a swathe was applied, and drawn gradually tighter as the water was evacuated. As no pains were spared to prevent the return of the dropsy, and as the best means I could devise proved unequal to my wishes, both in this and ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering

... case,' sez he. 'Westerfelt may fly around the whole caboodle of 'em, but when Liz gits 'er head set she cuts a wide swathe an' never strikes a snag ur stump, an' cleans out the fence-corners as ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben

... grows in the marshes, and resembles cyperoides, is gathered in the autumn, and carded like wool, with a comb made of the bones of the sea-swallow; with this, in lieu of linen and woollen clothes, they swathe their new-born infants, and use it for a covering next the skin whilst they are young. It is also made into a kind of wadding, and used for the purpose of giving additional warmth to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... cradle and school of infancy. The new born feeble being is not there swaddled and filletted up in a swathe, the source of a thousand diseases. Laid naked on a mat, exposed in a vast chamber to the pure air, he breathes freely, and with his delicate limbs ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... privileges by the dam proprietors. The hundred yoke of oxen, meanwhile, standing patient, gazing wishfully meadowward, at that inaccessible waving native grass, uncut but by the great mower Time, who cuts so broad a swathe, without so much as a wisp to ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... is reached, the cradle and the child are hung upon a tree, or on a pole inside the wigwam. Those who have communication with the whites may be seen clothed in blanket garments, which the men wear in the shape of coats; while the women swathe their bodies in a whole blanket, which covers them from their shoulders to ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... swathe of the uppermost ether, Where stars are the columns upholding a dome, And the edifice rolls on a corner of ocean, Lifts on a wave, poises ...
— Spectra - A Book of Poetic Experiments • Arthur Ficke

... bearing some appurtenances of their trade. Gordon addressed the undertaker briefly, giving some directions, then he motioned to James, and they passed out. Georgie K. remained in the room. He prevented the undertaker from removing the linen swathe on the dead man's throat. "Doc says it's catching," he said, and the undertaker ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman

... walk in—and they were afraid lest he should get through the hedge, or climb over the high padlocked gate in some way or other, for the Long Pond was on the other side, though it could not be seen for trees. Nor was he to approach nearer to the mowers than one swathe; he was always to keep one swathe between him and the scythes, which are extremely sharp ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies

... close! Kiss, oh kiss, and be warm! What is here, O beloved, so like a sea without sound? Under the swathe at our feet, swifter than wings of storm, Summer speeds on his way: Spring lies ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various

... house to house, asking for gifts of food such as eggs, cream, sausages, and cakes. Lastly, they sprinkle the Leaf Man with water and feast on the food they have collected. In the Fricktal, Switzerland, at Whitsuntide boys go out into a wood and swathe one of their number in leafy boughs. He is called the Whitsuntide-lout, and being mounted on horseback with a green branch in his hand he is led back into the village. At the village-well a halt is called and the leaf-clad lout is dismounted and ducked ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... and rolled himself well up in the blankets, and slumber gathered him forthwith, as a swathe of barley is folded into the arms of ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame

... gathering speed, was already turning the corner of the rue de la Lune when Neeland managed to free throat and eyes from the swathe of woollen. ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers



Words linked to "Swathe" :   swathing, bind, swaddle, patch



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