swash

English

Etymology

Scandinavian. Compare Swedish dialect svasska, Norwegian svakka, English dialect swack (“a blow”).

Pronunciation
  • Rhymes: -ɒʃ
  • Rhymes: -æʃ

Noun

swash (countable and uncountable, plural swashes)

  1. The water that washes up on shore after an incoming wave has broken
  2. (typography) A long, protruding ornamental line or pen stroke found in some typefaces and styles of calligraphy.
  3. A narrow sound or channel of water lying within a sand bank, or between a sand bank and the shore, or a bar over which the sea washes.
  4. (obsolete) Liquid filth; wash; hog mash.
  5. (obsolete) A blustering noise.
  6. (obsolete) swaggering behaviour.
  7. (obsolete) A swaggering fellow; a swasher.
  8. (architecture) An oval figure, whose mouldings are oblique to the axis of the work.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Moxon to this entry?)

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 The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.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 swash in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

Translations

Verb

swash (third-person singular simple present swashes, present participle swashing, simple past and past participle swashed)

  1. (intransitive) To swagger; to bluster and brag.
  2. (transitive, intransitive) To dash or flow noisily; to splash.
  3. (intransitive) To fall violently or noisily.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Holinshed to this entry?)

Translations

See also

Adjective

swash (comparative more swash, superlative most swash)

  1. Soft, like overripe fruit; swashy; squashy.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Pegge to this entry?)

Anagrams
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